Taking ceramics beyond pots and pans

The first edition of the Indian Ceramics Triennial, with the theme Breaking Ground, is all set to happen in Jaipur. In a country where ceramic art hasn’t gotten the much-needed attention, this event hopes to increase visibility and push ceramics into the domain of fine art. Priya Sundaravalli, who will be representing Tamil Nadu at this mega art event, talks to us about how this Triennial be a fillip to Indian ceramic art.

After completing medicine in Coimbatore, Priya went on to pursue two engineering degrees — Biomedical and Industrial. In her last year of Ph.D., she took ceramics and that’s how she got interested in it. “But particularly, I met my ceramics guru, Felipe Ortega — a master craftsman in traditional micaceous cookware who gave a course at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where I was studying. He was of Native American origin from the Jicarilla Apache tribe and was also a medicine man and a two-spirit. The contact with him changed my life,” Priya says.

Tamil Nadu, she feels, bubbles with a special kind of sacredness. The divine feminine is present everywhere, she says. In fact, the work she is showing at the Triennial finds its source in Madurai. “My work is called ‘Blossoming – Being all of them, She stands there’. It is a ceramics mix media sculptural work measuring 2.4 metres high and 3 metres wide. It is crafted from eight fibreglass discs and connecting membranes supported by a steel core, whose entire outer surface is covered with over 5,000 ceramic flowers and tesserae,” explains the artist.

The work draws its inspiration from a particular hymn out of the Thiruvaimozhi, a collection of sacred hymns by the 9th-century Alvar saint, Nammalvar. The Tamil original has a powerful sonorous cadence and in-depth meaning to it. 

“The English translation by AK Ramanujan is equally mesmerising. In this hymn, Nammalvar praises the divine, which is everything: ‘this man, that woman, and those things’, and finally concludes by saying ‘Being all of them, He stands there’. I took the artistic liberty to reword it so that it read, ‘Being all of them, She stands there.” elaborates Priya. 

For the first time, Indian ceramicists will be rubbing shoulders with contemporary artists who are known for their work in other media and Priya believes this would be a sensory treat to see the full spread of the possibilities of clay.  “Ceramic art is slowly getting its due recognition — it is almost like a sudden coming of age of ceramic expression! Everyone wants to put their hands in clay; I am talking here about regular people, not just artists. And this is not just in India; it is a phenomenon showing up across the world. Clay is becoming the medium to be used in inner healing work and not just for aesthetic exploration. We all need to return and connect with our inner child dropping all masks, and no better medium than clay. For clay is Mother Earth herself —powerful, gentle, pliant, and patient.”