Care for Clay
“Nature fascinates me. My work is guided by the material itself and I am the material I work with. I am molding the clay and at the same time, the clay molds me,” says Antra Sinha, a painter and sculptor. She was a painter, who by some force of nature, got allured by clay and started putting her creative senses to use in this form of art.
Antra’s Geometric shapes
Antra’s various works with ceramics is being displayed at the exhibition held at Tasmai, Pondicherry. This is perhaps one of the very few exhibitions where the artist allows the onlookers to touch and get a feel of her works. The exhibition has ceramic sculptures and structures which are unique in style and design. This exhibition is organized by Kirti Chandak, another well-known artist and mural painter. Antra Sinha is from Bihar. She graduated with a B.F.A. & M.F.A. from Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S.University of Baroda and has established herself as an artist in the field of ceramic sculpting. Most of her works were made at Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicherry with the exception of a few, which evolved during her period of stay at Japan. She remarks that working in Japan for three months after receiving a scholarship from the Japan Foundation was a an important curve in her path. There she got first-hand experience of working with other artists from all over the world and pooling together and combining of creative ideas. Antra, eager to know more about this art, returned to stay for a period of three months. Time she spent her days indulging in making three feet sculptures.
Various hexagonal shapes displayed at Tasmai Art Gallery
Initially, she started working with two dimensional wall flaring figures and due to her fascination with varied forms of life and nature, these figures were brought out in various forms like seeds and discs. The basic nature, shapes and colors of these seemed to evoke something in her which then evolved into her various latter sculptures. Later on, she started exploring with basic forms of 3D figures like square, sphere, cubes and pyramids, of 2 to 15 inches in size. Fifty of these figures were displayed in an exhibition once.
The Tetrarch, a chief attraction of the artwalk
She says that her sculptures take their own forms based on her thoughts and revelations about life and that both her work and life are intertwined. At the end, she also adds some sayings of work and life by Kanjiro Kawai, a well-known Japanese potter, according to whom work is everything. “Work represents life and work is what waits for the man to seek it and not vice-versa”.
Photos: Akhila C K and Krishnaveni I
Sooganya N
1st M.A. Mass Communication
