Textual content by Shirin Mehta. Styling by Sarah Rajkotwala. Artwork path by Aishwaryashree

I’m inescapably drawn to pottery. Is it as a result of the thought usually strikes me that these artefacts of clay are culled from the very mud that we’re created from? Is it as a result of these objects join me to the earth itself, to the very creation of man, to loss of life and renewal? Or as a result of there’s something so principally nourishing about vessels made initially to retailer meals and water, symbolising the basics of human life? All these, sure, as additionally the talents displayed by their makers. And the perfection usually inherent in silhouettes so marvellously formed. Isn’t there one thing nearly primal within the technique of working with mud – of getting your arms downright soiled and sculpting matter to your will?

Shards of pottery that survived the Indus Valley and Harappan civilisations have revealed tales of lives that we might by no means in any other case have guessed at. These fragments join us to our previous in a really tangible means because the ability of the potter continues to flourish with pottery being among the many nation’s most prevalent crafts. Nearly each area in India has its personal model of conventional pottery and its neighborhood of expert potters.

We, nonetheless, uncover fashionable younger ceramic artists who’ve elevated working with clay to a complete new degree, impressed by motifs as different as rooster legs and human noses to nature and the phrases of Rumi. Shapes stream intuitively, curves and angles discovering expression with day by day moods and feelings. The silhouettes of conventional pots and vases are distorted, with joyous abandon, to grasp new types. Performance could not be even a consideration in a few of these creations whereas others stay completely utilitarian at their core however unorthodox in kind. These artists experiment with method, quantity, color, glaze, texture and extra to provide you with their very own uniqueness. The craft, of their arms, is channelled into artwork even because the act of creation evokes a sense of rapture. Finest mentioned by sculptor-potter Latika Nehra in an Instagram put up: “I need to dwell on this nice, misplaced within the second, fully enraptured in creating – feeling extra usually.” Or, to cite one from sculptor Puja Rao: “I expertise carving as an act of ‘unearthing’ one thing that’s ‘already’ there by eliminating the pointless – in that second. And within the course of, with each bit, issues get lighter…and so do I.”

Verve speaks to 5 ceramicists whose work we love….

Latika Nehra; Berlin, Jaipur
Puja Rao; Bengaluru
Rajvi Mehta; Bengaluru
Rekha Goyal; Mumbai
Nandini Chandavarkar; Delhi, Himachal Pradesh