Amogelang Maepa

Amogelang Maepa (b. 1995) is a ceramist and visual storyteller based in South Africa. Her practice is grounded in clay as both material and metaphor, exploring its structural strength and fragility through repetition, experimentation, and risk. Working primarily with black clay and paper clay, Maepa embraces the technical precision of glazing and firing while remaining open to unpredictability. In her hands, clay becomes porous and bodily, a site where emotion, memory, and desire take form.

Her sculptures are fused with poetry drawn from personal experience. Intimate and direct, the accompanying texts are not illustrative but catalytic: they ignite connection and open space for dialogue. The honesty of her writing shapes the physical language of the works, resulting in forms that feel both vulnerable and insistent.

Maepa completed a National Diploma in Fine Art at Tshwane University of Technology (2017), majoring in Ceramics and Printmaking. Her work has been presented at the RMB Talent Unlocked programme

at Turbine Art Fair (2019), 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London (2021–22), Investec Cape Town Art Fair (2023), and Art Cologne (2023).

Since 2020, she has participated in multiple group exhibitions at Berman Contemporary. In 2026, she opened her first solo exhibition, One-night stands in white mustangs, at Berman Contemporary in Cape Town.

Her work is held in private collections.

Amogelang Maepa is represented by Berman Contemporary.

I work primarily with clay, exploring its material and emotional possibilities through experimentation and repetition. My recent works explore black clay and paper clay, materials that hold both structural strength and fragility. There is a fluidity to my process, alongside a highly technical and scientific approach to glazing and firing; the outcome is never fully knowable, and that excites me. Over time, this process has developed into a natural language that is instinctual, ritualistic, and embedded in my everyday practice.

My sculptures are fused with poetry, drawn from personal experience. They portray intimate and honest parts of myself. The poems are there to ignite connection and, at the same time, spark conversation. Being honest in my poetry helps shape the forms of the works; in a sense, I am handing something of myself over through these sculptures.