At first glance, the artist Vishakha Apte’s works seem almost reticent—muted surfaces, softened edges, forms that feel as though they have emerged from some archaeological site. In Mapped by Tide and Time, at Gallery Ragini, the ceramics resist the authority of the finished object. Bowls appear weathered by use or erosion, sculptural forms seem partially excavated rather than fully made, and surfaces carry a tactile sense of age. Curator Ina Puri does not arrange the exhibition as a neat chronology spanning three decades of practice; instead, the works unfold like fragments of material history, linked less by timeline than by sensibility.
Born in Nashik in 1966, Apte trained at the Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai, graduating in 1987, when printmaking in India was beginning to expand beyond conventional boundaries. Though she began with etching and intaglio, the discipline of printmaking continues to shape her ceramic practice. There is the same patience, the same attention to process, and the same acceptance of unpredictability. Her move into ceramics came later, during a workshop where she found herself drawn to clay’s resistance and tactility. “An artist must give enough time to the medium he or she is working with,” Apte says. “Each medium has numerous possibilities.”
That idea of dialogue between artist and material runs through the exhibition. Apte speaks of mediums not as separate disciplines but as interconnected languages. “The mediums in art are entangled in one another in a unique way. When we push the boundaries of basic nature of the medium it may lead us to the desired self-expression,” she reflects. The ceramics embody this approach. Nothing appears overly controlled. Edges remain uneven, textures retain traces of touch and firing, and forms settle somewhere between fragility and endurance.
Printmaking, meanwhile, continues to inform the rhythm of her practice. “The process of printmaking is indirect, time consuming and laborious,” reflects the artist, who divides her time between Bhopal and Mumbai. “My early practice of printmaking has given me two abilities: patience and perseverance,” she notes, adding that it also helped her develop “intimacy with each material considering all its possibilities.” Only later does paper begin to assert itself fully within the exhibition. Apte’s recycled paper constructions—made from pulped, torn and reassembled discarded printed matter—carry faint traces of earlier lives. The works emerged partly from witnessing waste being burnt in Bhopal and from her growing awareness of paper’s complicated place within everyday consumption. “I wanted to rejuvenate it in the form of my artworks,” she says. “They carry their own life’s vestiges, their being into my work. They suggest to me that change is inevitable.” Underlying everything is a search for stillness and introspection. The works do not yield under a quick glance. Instead, they ask viewers to remain with surfaces and silences long enough for them to begin speaking.