Di van der Riet Steyn

Contact: 082 937 2978 | divdrsteyn@gmail.com
Website
Studio Address: 15 Pastorie Street

Since her university days, Di has been drawn to the quiet poetry of found objects — fragments overlooked, discarded, or half-buried, waiting to be seen again.

She began her journey with a Bachelor of Fine Art in jewellery design at Stellenbosch University in 1979 – 1980, later receiving a Maggie Laubser scholarship to continue her studies in England and Germany. Years spent living and working across Europe shaped her practice before she returned to South Africa, where she built a career exhibiting widely and undertaking commissioned work, particularly in Plettenberg Bay.

In time, her focus turned inward — toward a more personal language of making.

Her current collection, Karoo Blues, emerges from years of walking the veld, gathering fragments: shards of crockery, softened by time, their surfaces marked by use, weather, and memory.

“In a dorp rich in history, one often walks nose-down in the veld, searching for that piece… bits of Karoo-blue and red shards. I wonder who used that piece of crockery 150 years ago? Someone else’s precious plate or cup—treasures in the ground, discarded on the garbage heap.”

In her hands, these remnants are transformed. Wrapped in pure silver, they become small acts of preservation — objects carried forward, reimagined, and worn close to the body.

Each piece holds a quiet tension between past and present: something once broken, now made whole again.