Wendy McLachlan lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. She was educated at the University of Cape Town, where she obtained a Master of Fine Art degree in 2001 for an exhibition of ceramic sculpture and an accompanying thesis. This exhibition examined issues of mortality, of relatedness and loss, and of the small intimacies of the domestic routine.

Since then Wendy has participated in a number of group shows, as well as exhibiting her products at the Cape Town Design Indaba shows in 2007 and 2008.

The home continues to be the arena where her work operates: the low-key items of domesticity are looked at in a gently witty way. Ceramic tables and chairs, and ceramic cupboards crammed with a variety of domestic objects were intended as a low key humorous take on the creature comforts, warmth and affection of one’s personal space. These works are titled with trite proverbs: Home is where the heart is, Storm in a teacup, Homebaked/Tuisgebakte.

Homebakes, her small production ware company, produces a functional slip-cast range of “teatime ceramics and other delights” which play upon themes found in traditional bone china. The conventions of sprigging, delftware printing and gold lustre decoration are given a contemporary edge. Sculptural pieces, table centre pieces and candelabra, use as components items from the Homebakes range which are piled up in precarious stacks on cake plates or cake stands.