Painterly ceramics with a purpose
- David's ceramics are inspired by current events and the environment
- His techniques include pinching, slab work and collage
- Experimentation and failure is key to his process
David Bellamy creates sculptural ceramic forms that reflect his concerns about the environment and contemporary issues. After completing a biological science degree, he maintained his interest in ceramics through evening classes before enrolling for a BA in fine art and critical studies at Central Saint Martins. David returned to Cape Town in 2000, where he met and was deeply inspired by Margy Malan’s informal, intimate approach to ceramics. His work ranges from collaging with vitrified fragments to using glazes in a painterly way, grounded in technical knowledge informed by plant observations and dissections. “I am interested in technique and getting things right, but I am also interested in being experimental and discussing the moment,” David says.
Discover his work
INTERVIEW
When I was a child, I wanted to be a potter. I had read a book about nuclear warfare and started accumulating survivalist skills. I used to make things out of clay from the riverbeds. I am not a survivalist now, but a lot of my subject matter is about environmental anxiety.
I am not a utilitarian: I am more like a journaling ceramicist. My work is very intuitive and experimental, prompted by events or thoughts. For me, ceramics is a philosophy and a way to work ideas out. It is a means to discuss my thoughts and externalise them.
I think there is too much technology, and that synthetic reality is masking our ability to understand what is real and actually going on. The tactility of my work is campaigning on behalf of the analogue, the immediate and the human presence.
My work serves as a warning about different environmental crises. I would like people to identify my pieces with the natural world and see that it is beautiful and requires protection.
