BENGALURU: An Australian artist Barbara Campbell-Allen will showcase her ceramic work for the first time in India at the opening show of Gallery Manora. The exhibition ‘Gondwana Horizon’ is a composite of her experiences of the Australian continent.
The Indian peninsula and Australia were a single landmass, Gondwana, which separated over 240 million years ago. Similar rock strata and fossils are found in both locations. Barbara says, “I recently heard of some researchers who had found similar fossils near Broome on the West coast of Australia and in the South of India. I found this very exciting as Art Weave had invited me to exhibit in India and the idea emerged of expressing my picture of Australia - a personal story based on my experiences of places special to me.”
Barbara has journeyed through many remote places that have provided the inspiration for the three groups of work on display with 10 pieces in each. She says, “Each stands alone, but collectively tell a bigger story.”
Remembering a Time of Plenty
She recalls the legacy of a time when Australia had a much higher rainfall. “Travelling by foot through the desert environments can be very monotonous, but view the same landscape from above and a wonderful pattern of braided channels emerge. In a similar manner, when travelling by car across these places, the land nearly disappears and the vista is all about the sky. This was the starting point for the Cloud series.”
She took about 18 months to complete the series. “Working with clay is always a challenge and can be very frustrating. It is a wonderful material because its plasticity enables an immediacy in making and also makes it expressive.” Care is always needed in drying and firing larger pieces. She only fires twice a year in a wood firing kiln which takes up to 100 hours of continuous stoking. “This can sometimes go wrong, meaning months of work are wasted. Last year, I had two wonderful firings of which you can see the results in Gondwana Horizon,” she adds.
Clay is Challenging,
Full of Possibilities
As a teenager, she was introduced to clay and she still loves working with it. “Clay is such a responsive material,” she says adding that she doesn’t work on any other medium as clay still provides too many challenges and possibilities.
Her ceramic art practice is a fusion plastic, clay and then firing these pieces leading to a subtle and varied surface textures and colours. “Long wood firing is inefficient and time consuming but I consider the results unobtainable with alternative firing processes. Wood fire ceramics is an aesthetic that incorporates an element of chance in the final result - the firing concludes the making. After nearly 25 years of wood firing, each firing is still both exhilarating and challenging,” she says.
She came to India 18 months ago for a research trip with the Art Weave to explore exhibition practices in Delhi.
You can see her work at the Gallery Manora, 100 feet road, Indira Nagar on January 20.