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| Neha Kudchadkar |
‘Bridges’ was an exhibition of ceramics held at Stainless
Gallery, New Delhi. This exhibition showcased the work of fifty studio potters
who have trained with Deborah Smith and Ray Meeker at The Golden Bridges
Pottery studio in Pondicherry.
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| Reyaz Badruddin |
Playful porcelain and pen doodles by Neha Kudchadkar
reminiscent of containers defied the weightiness of them. Reyaz Badaruddin had
flattened the cup. A hollow container, usually thrown on the wheel had been
painted on flat clay tiles. Veena
Chandran used a large, traditional earthen pot-form. But she flattened it out
as if breaking the clay pot, and then smeared the moist clay with her hands in
a gesture that sought to explore the potential of clay, beyond traditionally prescribed
norms. Shayonti Salve’s thrown but altered forms were a reflection of the
duality she experiences where, as she said: “my head is often tormented by the
times we live in, while my heart tried to comfort it”
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| Veena Chandran |
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| Shayonti Salve |
Pottery is one of the oldest art forms in India. Known as Prajapati or Kumbhar, the potter played a significant role in ancient society.
However, potters no longer command the same reverence that was once accorded to
them, nor do contemporary potters continue the tradition of making pots for
daily use. “Today our students are about as interested in making functional
stoneware as the sons of Indian village potters are interested in continuing in
their fathers’ footsteps”, say Smith and Meeker. This quantum shift from the
traditional, ‘form follows function’ approach, towards the more ornamental and
conceptual approach in contemporary ceramics, where ‘ideas’ supersede ‘function’,
makes an interesting comment on the social and cultural values of our time.
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| Ray Meeker |
Golden Bridges, now a preeminent centre for ceramics, was set
up in the mid 1970’s by Deborah Smith with her friend Ray Meeker, at the
invitation of ‘The Mother’ spiritual head of the Aurobindo Ashram in
Pondicherry. Cited as an exhibition of ceramics rooted in the Golden Bridges
tradition and a tribute to the influence of Meeker and Smith one expected to
find a thread that knitted together the work on display. To the contrary, the
diversity of scale and style belied the fact that each of the fifty potters had
been trained by the same two ceramic artists and more particularly, were
trained using a specialized wood-firing technique. Among the fifty potters participating, were Anjani
Khanna, Michel Hutin, Aditi Saraogi, Manisha
Bhattacharya, Adil Writer, Kristine Michael,
Nehal Rachh, P. Daroz, Vineet Kacker and Sylvia Kerkar. Although primarily
trained in making wood-fired studio-pottery, working in an urban context many
of them have
explored gas and electric firings to evolve a differing aesthetic.
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| P.Daroz, From the 'Sea Bed' Series |
Michel Hutin, a Frenchman who has lived and worked in
Auroville for over twenty-five years, joins soft, undulating slabs of clay such
that the interacting lines create rhythm, melody and counterpoint. P. Daroz has
a passion for seascapes. Drawing upon memories of trips to various coasts and
cliffs, his ceramic pieces from the ‘Sea Bed’ series are abstract in their
presentation. For Nehal Rach an advertising graduate, who found her calling
working in clay, pottery is not just something she does, but says that
clay-work defines her. Reyaz Badaruddin responds
to urban spaces by evoking the disappearing fields of the agrarian landscape he
grew up in. Each of these potters has moved beyond making a conventional vessel,
to present abstract ideas where it is no longer about pots per se, but clay as
art.
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| Neha Kudchadkar |
The local potter and ceramic artist co-exist, but the local
potter is not an artist in the contemporary sense of the word. He is
technically skilled but doesn’t employ self-expression which is the basis of
much art today. Ironically, this facet once deemed “pitiable rather than
heroic” in ancient India, as cited by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, is what is being
keenly explored by contemporary ceramic artists. Pottery is essentially a
skill-centric craft where the kind of clay used, kiln and techniques of firing,
as well as glazes, play a significant role in the eventual product and how it
looks. The firing process can be as intense as eighteen to seventy-five hours,
with potters keeping vigil and maintaining logbooks. All of which is rarely
mentioned in relation to exhibitions of clay work. In positioning ceramics within the context of
contemporary art, the technical process employed is seemingly superseded by the
concepts explored.
That the medium has
evolved to transcend its functional origins, is a tribute to the creative minds
that work with clay, as much as it is a yearning to bring attention and value
to hands that have moulded earth into
vessel for centuries. However, the expression of self in the works on display,
did not articulate an exploration authentic enough, to speak the language of
contemporary art.
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| Manisha Bhattacharya |
[This exhibition was held in September 2014]
