Tile the walls with art

WORDS Debbie Loots

It’s no secret that we adore South African artist Ruan Hoffmann’s fabulous art on ceramic homeware (read all about it in the new VISI), but we are especially excited to have discovered that Ruan has gone and pushed things even further by producing a limited range of hand-lithographed encaustic cement tiles.

“Postcards from Myself” is Ruan’s latest of three collections of striking hand-lithographed tiles specially created for clé, an international artisan tile e-boutique.

The first two collections, “Entrapercevoir” (glimpse) and “Much Love Me” consist of the clever one-liners and striking, often provocative, iconography Ruan is known for and – just like his newest range – all draw inspiration from personal memories and special moments in his life, the places he travelled to, past lovers and oceans he swam in (read more about his creative process here).

For this new collection, Ruan started off by first painting the original images, from ghostlike birds to proteas and persimmons, on postcard-sized paper and he describes his creative process as “a series of postcards from myself about my life”.

All three divine ranges are available as limited editions on limestone, porcelain bisque or hand-lithographed onto encaustic cement.  

ruanhoffmann.com, cletile.com/artist/ruan-hoffmann

Ruan Hoffmann is featured in our April/May 2014 REWIND REDO RENEW edition, now on shelves.