“Most recently I have been exploring notions of monumentality and the human form through a series of sculpted figures. Created with a process that begins with the digging and gathering of soil from various locales and progresses in the studio through such actions as welding, casting, modelling, and carving, I create these figures in order to open up narratives that speak through both image and materiality. At the core of these works are reflections in place.”

Ledelle Moe was born in 1971 in Durban, South Africa. She currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. Ledelle Moe is a sculptor who investigates concepts of permanence and impermanence, location and dislocation, and place and displacement. Travelling to specific sites, Moe collects samples of the earth, which she then uses as an aggregate in cement. The cement is poured and moulded into both small and large statues, bodies which balance on walls and float above ground. Moe’s work uses local aggregates to develop conversations about land and identity - asking the viewer to reconsider how political and personal histories are rooted in place and soil. 

Moe studied sculpture at Technikon Natal, graduating in 1993 and completed her Master’s Degree in Sculpture in 1996 at the Virginia Commonwealth University in the USA. Moe held an adjunct position in the Sculpture Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, Maryland before returning to South Africa in 2013, where she took up a position at Stellenbosch University, becoming Head of the Sculpture Department at the Fine Arts’ Faculty. 

In 2022, Moe presented her first solo exhibition at SMAC Gallery, titled Fold, in Cape Town, South Africa. Further selected solo exhibitions include 2020’s When at MASS Moca in Massachusetts, USA; Ruptures at Semaphore Gallery in Neuchatel, Switzerland in 2017; Traces, which showed at GUS Gallery in Stellenbosch and at Commune 1 Gallery in Cape Town in 2014; Transitions/ Displacements at Commune 1 Gallery in Cape town and at Kirk Hopper Fine Art in Dallas, USA in 2012; Untitled at Factory Square Fine Arts festival in Cincinnati, USA in 2011; Relief at Crane Arts Gallery in Philadelphia, USA and Erosion at Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, USA in 2010. 

In 2024, Moe presented Foldings, as part of her Omachi Triennale residency in Japan (NAAF). 2023 Moe participated in the Congo Biennale in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Moe has also exhibited at Kulturhuset (Stockholm, Sweden) the NSA Gallery (Durban, South Africa), the International Sculpture Center (Washington, DC), The Washington Project for the Arts (Washington, DC) and American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York. Awards include the Joan Mitchell Award in 2002 and the Kreeger Museum Artist Award in 2008. Previous projects include large-scale concrete installations at Socrates Park and Pratt Institute in New York City, and The African Museum of Art in Washington DC; while recent projects include installations in Salzburg, Austria, Brooklyn, NY, Boston MA, Cape Town, India and the Biennale Internationale D’Art, Martinique.