For an artist working with ceramics, training under the legendary Ray Meeker is a privilege and also a turning point in their career. Perhaps that is why the ongoing exhibition by Antra Sinha and Khanjan Dalal, both mentored by Meeker, is a journey into a fascinating world of ceramics. The show titled ‘Marks in Time’ at Delhi’s Latitude 28 puts forth ceramics beyond the perceived functional and decorative objects.
Both Sinha and Dalal’s body of works showcase ceramics done by the traditional anagama (a Japanese term meaning cave kiln) firing technique. Holding this kiln is the most difficult part of the firing process. The potter has to imagine the flame path as fire rushes through the kiln.
So it was not easy when Dalal, the 43-year-old Ahmedabad-based artist, used his practice to translate subjective into objects. He explains, “My works are not directly related to a particular theme. They are
narratives from history that I’ve used as a tool to question certain geopolitical issues.”
Both Sinha and Dalal’s creations challenge the stereotypes of ceramics—they’re neither functional nor decorative. They heavily draw their craft from their mentor, Meeker—the American-born ceramicist who moved to Puducherry in 1970 with his wife Deborah Smith and founded the Golden Bridge Pottery in 1970. The couple back then became the first producers of hand-thrown glazed stoneware in South India.
Dalal, who’s done his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the MS University of Baroda, always felt a need to hold something in his hands. So he gravitated towards ceramics. He first trained under the late Jyotsna Bhatt in Baroda and much later in 2014 attended a workshop at Golden Bridge Pottery. That was his first experience of firing the anagama kiln and fell in love with the process. He says, “It transformed me from a painter into a ceramicist.” He has put up six of his installations, of which a large one is clearly his piéce de résistance. Titled ‘47 Ronin’, this is based on a Japanese folk tale, also known as Treasury of Loyal Retainers, in the Kabuki performance and tells a dark tale of revenge.
Sinha’s ceramic sculptures, on the other hand, are a depiction of geometric figures. She’s been inspired by the Fibonacci sequence (a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two that precede it) and the hexagon. After completing her BFA and MFA at Baroda’s Maharaja Sayajirao University in 2002, Sinha applied to Golden Bridge Pottery. While she was prepared to be part of the long waiting list for the seven-month course, Meeker offered her an apprenticeship for an exhibition he was putting together. There has been no looking back since then.
“After assisting Ray in making various sculptures, glazing his monumental sculptures and firing them in the big wood kiln, I learnt how to make pots. I also learnt how to make platters that were like a painting. I came across a Zen monk’s drawing of a triangle, square and a circle. My thoughts led me into making them into a tetrahedron square and sphere,” she says.
After shaping them in 14 inches and still wanting to create a bigger size, she started introspecting on what really resonates with her. “I figured that my life was frugal and I could relate to tetrahedron as it has the least number of elements. It is a stable three-dimensional form and I could relate to myself,” says 43-year-old Sinha who lives in Utah, USA. Indeed, the duo has left their mark in time.
When & Where
Marks in Time
Till February 15, Monday to Saturday, 11 am–7 pm
At Latitude 28, Lado Sarai, New Delhi.