Xanthe Somers Zimbabwe, b. 1992

'My practice is informed by the politics of aesthetics, and more significantly how the colonial history in Zimbabwe continues to manipulate aesthetic values. My work as a ceramic sculptor looks at reimagining the everyday and examining the subtle treason of objects.' Xanthe Somers.

Xanthe Somers was born in 1992 in Harare, Zimbabwe. She defines herself as a contemporary ceramic sculptor. Somers creates large-scale, intricate ceramic works that are informed by the politics of aesthetics and in particular how her country’s colonial history continues to manipulate aesthetic values.

Her latest body of work reveals large sculptures of various shapes, sizes and materials. She combines age-old Zimbabwean traditions and materials into her hand-built ceramic sculptures such as weaving, wax fabric, granite stone in combination with new materials and social commentary, as a way of reflecting on the fraught relationship between the past and present. Through a sense of play, bright colours, mocking tone and exaggerated shapes, the artist tries to challenge the prevailing ideas associated with normalcy, beauty and refinement.

Xanthe Somers graduated from Michealis School of Fine Art, UCT in Cape Town in 2015, majoring in printmaking. She went on to be awarded a grant to study a MA Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London which she completed in 2020 with distinction.

Selected shows, art prizes and education:

Education

MA in Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, 2020
Fine Art (Hons) at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 2015

Selected shows

Bad+ Bordeaux Art + Design, Galerie Revel, May 2023, Bordeaux, France
Group Show, Galerie Revel, Collect Art Fair, London, UK, 2023
Group Show, Untitled Art Fair, Miami, November 2022, Miami, USA
Group Show, Paris Design Week, Galerie Revel, September 2022, Paris, France
Group Show, 'Dialogues' Galerie Revel, July - September 2022, Bordeaux, France
Solo show, ‘A Vocabulary for ghosts’ at First Floor Gallery, Victoria Falls 2021
Group show at Benteler and Bellm London, UK, 2021
Group show at 99 Loop, Untitled 8.9. Cape Town, 2020
Solo show ‘The Grass is Singing’ Index – Wort und Wirkung, Zurich, Switzerland, 2017
Solo show, ‘The Intimacy of Objects’ Corridor Gallery Harare, Zimbabwe 2017
Solo show ‘Hole not Whole’ Fusion Art Gallery, Turin, Italy 2016

Art Prize

Top 10 finalist Celeste Art Prize exhibition, OXO London, UK, 2017
Top 10 finalist exhibition for Blooom Award by Warsteiner at Cologne Art Fair, 2017
Full grant to study Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy at Goldsmiths, London, 2019