It's Clay Time

Breaking Ground, India’s first ever ceramics triennale, will showcase contemporary works of art in clay.

- Sneha Bhura

RAHUL KUMAR IS a ceramist. The round form of the circle, like the potter’s wheel, is intrinsic to his artistic vocabulary. But, he is adding a new, speculative dimension to this idiom of the circular and the concentric. In his latest work Terra Geometrix, he has collaborated with a painter to engage with metaphors of urban geography and cityscapes. Heavily textured round discs, fired in clay in varying sizes, sometimes cut apart, recall urban landscapes. There are roads, manholes and trees. His collaborator Chetna, who works compulsively with lines, has slashed and sliced through these textures with linear patterns. Like city grids. But, there are other components, too, which pay homage to Jaipur, which will host this artwork soon. White-coloured pieces with blue jaali work are overlapped with gold, to signal lost heritage, royalty and preciousness. This 10 by 8 feet sculpture conveys “a certain sense of urbanness”. Not your typical artwork in clay?