Otherwordly organics

As a teenager, multidisciplinary artist and designer Jan Ernst says, he had little sense of what he should do once he finished high school. “I was creative, but also very logical — and when my career-guidance assessments arrived, the counsellor said my left-brain and right-brain scores were pretty much equal,” he remembers.

“They suggested I study architecture.” That’s exactly what he did, but while architectural studies were indeed the right choice for Ernst, he never really felt like a career architect. The urge to create beautiful objects and, perhaps more so, to work with his hands was too strong. Which is how the world of architecture lost out and ceramic design gained a new and remarkable exponent.

Ernst emerged onto the vibrant Cape Town ceramics scene in 2020 with a series of organic yet otherworldly candleholders and candelabra that instantly caught the eye. Biomorphic and nature-inspired, his work’s playful, almost irreverent feel was delightfully fresh. Those early pieces formed the basis for what is now his ongoing and very popular Forest Candelabra range.

Immediately characteristic of Ernst’s work was its combination of expressive, biophilic forms and a bold approach to colour — including embracing its complete absence — with a willingness to continually experiment with materials, methods, and decorative finishes. The fact that he grew up in a rural environment, surrounded by the shapes, colours, and rhythms of nature, is clearly a major influence on his creative process and output. Ernst’s creations are nature-inspired yet also eschew obvious realism, reaching out through exploration and alchemic play towards a sense of transcendence that, perhaps paradoxically, serves to convey a sense of the power and grandeur of the natural world.

The Sea Candelabra pieces, for example, were inspired by “sea sponges, kelp, corals, and newly discovered creatures that live on the ocean floor”. But these creatures and plants were not realistically represented in the pieces — rather, the work conveyed an understanding of their essence, of what the undersea world feels like. One of his key areas of interest as an artist and designer is “materiality and its expression”. He regularly does work in white stoneware, terracotta, plaster of Paris (usually with inbuilt mesh supports), and black clay.

Recent material experiments include works made in part from cast bronze, as well as porcelain and marble. All of these have been executed in collaboration with other skilled artisans. The thickness and solidity of his clay pieces are often structurally necessary, giving designs that incorporate lighting the required stability and durability, for example — but Ernst’s creations also have a delicacy of form and line.

Of key importance is light and the exploration of how it can be used to complement his ceramic forms. The combination of light with shape, he explains, allows for certain interpretations of the latter to emerge, amplifying its effects. This alchemic blending is yet another way in which the point and counterpoint of inspiration and rendering functions in his works, whether they are his distinctive Seed, Eye and Womb series of table lamps; an eye-catching Seed Pod vessel or vase; his termite-inspired Ant Hill candelabras; or a special commission.

The creation process is both lengthy and meticulously detailed: after in part taking inspiration from the natural world of the context in which they will be installed, Ernst begins by making charcoal drawings. These are scanned into his laptop and rendered as digital scale-model drawings that become the basis for clay and bronze elements. Since those initial Sea Candelabra pieces, his work has appeared in prestigious international craft exhibitions, as well as in design magazines both in South Africa and abroad. When we visited his studio, Ernst was preparing a commission for a client in Dubai and a custom-made piece for one in Singapore. And many more uniquely beautiful things can be expected.

jan-ernst.com

From the June edition of Wanted, 2025