Artist
Xanthe Somers
Xanthe Somers was born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe. She studied Fine Art at Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town, South Africa. She attended art residencies at both Fusion Art Gallery in Turin, Italy and Index in Zurich, Switzerland, and then received a grant to study an MA in Postcolonial Culture at Goldsmiths, University of London.
She currently works from her ceramic studio based in Peckham Levels making large-scale hand-built unique sculptures out of clay. She re-imagines everyday objects to empower their meaning, challenging their purpose and obscure normality. She is influenced by Zimbabwean Postcolonial culture and the ‘ghosts’ or ideas that we imbue into objects, artworks, or systems when we create them.
“With my work I try to shift away from the ideas of beauty, refinement, and value that I grew up learning. After all, objects are not inert; they carry meaning, they have a purpose and they are political. It is the ghosts that live within these objects that intrigue me- and their persistent presence that usually outlives their creators.”
