It’s the infrequent appearances of ceramic exhibitions in the city that make you stop and notice when it happens. But one can’t also discredit the unique medium that it is. The laborious process of shaping, texturing and glazing by an artist transforms a piece of clay into objet’d’art.
And this is what Bowl’d Over is showcasing. Gomathi Suresh’s Gallery Manora brings together 10 artists to display a range of ceramic art. They have taken the quintessential bowl and created a visual feast.
They resort to various techniques and ways to experiment with the form of a bowl. Amrita Dhawan, one of the senior-most potters around in the city has come up with sculptural vessel forms which are coil built. The textures have been created through thick slip (a mixture of clay particles and water made in various consistencies and applied to create texture) and wood fired in Anagama kilns, a Japanese type of kiln. A handful of people in India use Anagama kilns. Centuries ago, the potters in Japan and China used to work with these wood-fired tunnel shaped kilns located on hillsides. The kilns are fired for weeks.
Another unusual technique and approach on view is Mahima Singh’s bowls made by using Sgrafitto techniques. “The lines have been carved through vibrant underglaze colours. I am so happy to note that even though the form of bowl, I told them to stick to as curatorial brief, is traditional, none of the artists in the show have taken a traditional approach,” says Gomathi Suresh, who has curated the show. Gomathi has been studying studio pottery since 2005 and is currently doing a diploma in Ceramic art in Sydney.
Gomathi feels that studio potters in Bengaluru walk on a path that is different from the rest of India. “That is because they are not exposed to the usual. So, their influences are different. Being in this tech city, their relationship with experimentation is different,” expresses the curator who intends to make this show an annual exercise.
The sheer variety of art works makes it a compelling showcase. Treating the bowl like a canvas, the artists have gone all out to explore it. If at one instance, the bowl draws from the abstraction, elsewhere the viewer will find the traces of figuration and even geometric influences. Made by hand, thrown on wheel, glazed, painted on, fired, the collection attests to a robust ceramic art scene in the country.
The young Pritpal Singh has been a revelation to Gomathi who feels he could be Gallery Manora’s find. Singh brings in clay modelling and animation influences to sculpting child-like figurines on his porcelain bowls. Shubha Raghavan, a former software engineer experiments with the Fibonacci Spiral, a mathematically precise pattern found in nature. “Nalini Thyagarajan boldly explores intricate layering of a vibrant ceramic glaze palette and clever firing techniques,” adds Gomathi.
Anubha Jaswal, Ksjitija Mitter, Maya Babu, Meenakshee, Shilpy Gupta and Vijay Vasudevan are other studio potters participating in the exhibition.
