Round and round went the potter’s wheel, the monotony of his thumb  making a hole in the clay lump, pulling it up and cutting it in a swift movement, putting it aside and making another and another and another…it was mesmerizing. I could have watched it for hours. It was my first visit to the potter’s colony as a kid, I just watched in fascination but couldn’t pinpoint what held my attention. It was this fascination that brought me to Santiniketan to do my Bachelors in Ceramics. At Kala Bhawan, Santiniketan it wasn’t so much about the academics, technique or the know-how but more about exploring the medium, connecting with it, identifying it as a language to express and communicate. We were shown how to throw (work on the wheel) once and were left to practice…It was that initial struggle with clay which helped one to understand it, to subconsciously converse with it and find a balance which became the most natural way of being with it, without any effort, as if I knew the clay and the clay knew me… It was then and in the coming years that I realized what had mesmerized me while I watched that potter work on the wheel long back… they were not separate beings, they were one, the potter, his wheel and the clay.

The open fields and the narrow paths, the vast skies above and the wavering sounds of the wind… It was this experience of space in Santiniketan (where I studied) which made me aware of the different auras and energies that define every space and object. It slowly translated itself in my work.

My work is an expression of how I perceive my existence in context to the ever changing world around. I am interested in exploring the interrelation between man and space where sometimes man associates with the limitless space within him and sometimes responds to the urban multilayered physical one around. The two forming parallel worlds, coexisting and shifting in time…  

Inspired by the use of clay in the folk tradition of India, I began working extensively in terracotta, enjoying the tactile, porous and rugged surface of low temperature clay bodies. While I mainly work using pinching techniques, where I build a form by joining coils, I also use slab and wheel thrown forms when required. I enjoy the direct contact with the medium where the fingerprints leave the mark of that time on the surface. Clay gives me the freedom to build and create any way I want and I enjoy exploring that freedom to express and communicate with the outside world as well as the one within.