Ladies first

Across their varying styles and approaches the unlikely thing that ties three female ceramic artistsmdashTeja Gavankar Dhruvi Acharya and Vinita Mungimdashtogether is their sense of humour In a conversation about her decision to make Mumbai her professional base Gavankar brings to our notice the bricks she works with fashioning entire sculptures out of them Smaller than the bricks normally used in construction these miniature cuboids are a product of working in a 10x10 feet studio in a city where pocketsized homes are the normldquoAt first I wondered how I could pursue my style in Mumbai because it wasnrsquot possible to store bricks in my Borivli studio So I devised the idea of cutting a brick into smaller piecesmdashit was an artistic negotiation Itrsquos funny how the city moulded my practicerdquo Gavankar saysVinita Mungi who is known for creating rich topographies and colourful works says that this humour comes with the fragility of the mediummdashthe finished product once it emerges out of a kiln ldquoI think we have to develop our senses of humour as a consequence of the heartbreaks we go throughmdashthe constant breaking and damage the unpredictability of it allrdquoVinita Mungi is known for her experimental work that showcases the potential of ceramic as a medium PicSameer MarkandeGavankar Mungi and Acharya are among the most noteworthy female voices in Indian ceramic art presenting commentaries on philosophy gender and ecology through visions for intricate and layered works midday visits their studios across the city as the trio prepares for the upcoming Indian Ceramics Triennale in New Delhi spanning from January to March 2024Vinita Mungirsquos rootedness to India manifests in many different ways For one she uses clay from the potter neighbourhood of Dharavi which is natural unlike imported clay packed with polymers that make sculpting easy ldquoThe clay from Dharavi is finer because it is meant for earthenware not for complicated intricate sculptures that are handbuilt For myself to feel authentic to where I am from I wanted to use local claymdashto pay homage to the rich history that Indian ceramic art belongs tordquo Mungi saysTeja Gavankar with her work titled Neti Neti Gavankarrsquos practice marries geometry and philosophy PicsNimesh DaveHer career in art began like many Indian artists in drawing and painting She pursued her Bachelorrsquos in the US where a multidisciplinary approach was encouraged and where she took her first ceramics class But what she realised was that the pedagogy had only prepared her for the Western art world ldquoI knew I wanted to come back to India and be a contemporary artist here this is my identity at the end of the day I didnrsquot want to educate my audience I wanted to be in a place where people could look at my work criticallyrdquo Mungi explainsThe decision to set up a studio in Andherirsquos Marol was guided by her desire to exhibit in the city But it was also rooted in the realities of the medium itself ldquoThe fragility of the medium has overtaken my life defining the very way I conduct it Ceramic is a timeconsuming material even the setting up takes up half an hour You canrsquot just enter the studio and start workingmdashitrsquos not like extracting paint out of a tubemdashthe material has to be prepared right before you work you canrsquot do things in advancerdquo she explainsTo Mungi the beauty of ceramics is the way it liberates artists but also the commitment it commands Of the cycles of surrender and control it involves she says ldquoIt allows you to push yourself and your boundaries to take things apart construct and reconstruct When itrsquos unfired and raw it really is liberating When you finish making your ceramic piece is when you have to take your sense of control backrdquo Mungi is no stranger to disasters in the kiln from the temperature shooting up within minutes to pieces bursting ldquoI always say ceramics is not a shortterm relationshipmdashit is a lifelong commitment given the effort and energy taken to learn the mediumrdquoDhruvi Acharya will be taking an ambitious 101piece sculptural presentation to the Triennale PicPradeep DhivarHer rich topographical creations invite the viewer to consider their ecological themes leading further into questions of gender and sexuality This referencing is meant to be covert and underlying ldquoItrsquos a normalising of these subjects not sensationalising them because I could otherwise have created massive forms of sexual organs That would be in your face and in my opinion one dimensional When these delicate forms are hidden within the architecture itrsquos at once present and not presentrdquo she explainsSunaina Rajan cofounder of Chemould CoLab which represents Mungi applauds her for constantly experimenting with techniques and textures showcasing the endless possibilities of the medium ldquoWhat stands out most to me about Mungirsquos ceramics is the interactive elements in her work Being able to play around with the different pieces allows one to rearrange them in the way they like for example placing mushrooms sponges frogs insects and leaves in and around the sculptures every now and then allowing her ecosystems to constantly evolve and changerdquo Rajan saysFor the artist Madhvi Subrahmanian and Shilpa Gupta have been great influencesmdashand part of the reason why she believed she could pave her own way in India ldquoGupta isnrsquot held back by her material it is almost an afterthought To her the concept is primary and she speaks of all the important sociopolitical themes around us The material is only a way of conveying that Subrahmanian has contributed in a large way to the ceramics scene in Indiamdashabstracting it breaking through the notion that itrsquos not just functional reinventing her workrdquo Mungi says in awe of the two veteran artistsMungi will take her most ambitious largest work yet to the Triennale spanning 5x5x5 feet and weighing nearly 200 kg ldquoIt just about fits into my kiln It has been built as one singular piece No scaffolding or moulds no internal structuremdashit is entirely handmaderdquo she saysThe kiln at Dhruvi Acharyarsquos Breach Candy studio has been burning for the past yearmdashitrsquos a studio where the artist has different areas for her work across painting drawing watercolours sewing and computer work Trained in fine arts Acharya established herself in the late 90s as a painter of the emotional and psychological aspects of urban womenrsquos lives through whimsical imagesEvery day when she comes to work she determines which medium is calling out to her and where it can take her ldquoMy working style with clay is organicmdashI havenrsquot mastered this medium yet so it is both fun and challenging to experiment with itrdquo Acharya saysHer first brush with sculptures was a 2016 installation fashioned like a bedroom with floating furniture It was during an unexpectedly long trip to New York in 2021 that Acharya experimented with ceramics Since she couldnrsquot establish a painting studio in a rental home where she would be for less than a year she signed up for a number of pottery classes at Greenwich Housemdashdesigning her own residency in the medium It was reminiscent of a childhood fascination ldquoI remember in my school report cards the recurring comment would be about my love for playing with plasticinerdquo the artist sharesFor Acharya the choice to work out of Mumbai was one shaped by the circumstances of life rather than her career She was dividing her time between New York and Mumbai until 2010 when she lost her husband and decided she wouldnrsquot return alone preferring to work and raise her children here where she has a bigger community of friends and loved onesAt first she didnrsquot think her stint in ceramics would go beyond experiments but her growing love for it combined with the response to her works changed her mind ldquoMost artists do keep experimenting and learningmdashchallenging themselves especially if they are selfdirected and selfdisciplinedrdquoThe humour that characterises Acharyarsquos style is even more palpable in her sculpturesmdashof women and anthropomorphised screaming flowers The flowers are a lasting motif that have evolved from her visual art to her ceramic works They are a comment on how humans use and abuse nature in different contexts ldquoTo me the flowers represent living creatures without voices The human lack of empathy and sensitivity towards other life forms angers me I wanted to depict the silent screams of flora and fauna The gold teeth however were just a fun touch to make them more sinisterlookingrdquo Acharya chucklesThis sense of play is what gives the artist fluidity and flexibility ldquoThe same idea could be expressed differently in each mediummdashwhich I find to be immensely funhellip Sometimes using ceramic is like seeing my drawings in 3D Sometimes after having worked on a ceramic piece I may want to present a particular idea or motif in my paintings as wellrdquo she saysTo the Triennale Acharya will be bringing an ambitious 101sculpture presentationmdasheach individual piece contains stories from her work and is in conversation with the rest of the pieces pointing to the intersections between concerns of gender and ecology ldquoI do believe the human respect for the environment and female gender is tied up If vulnerable populations were treated with respect that would reflect in how we treat nature as wellrdquo Acharya saysGavankar born and raised in Mumbai immersed herself in a number of courses in the city which shaped her early years in fine art in the 2000s she would go on to participate in group exhibitions at the Jehangir Art Gallery and Nehru Center It was in Vadodara when she pursued her Masterrsquos that a shift took place in her practice prompting her to play with threedimensional forms rather than twodimensional ones ldquoThis shift was organic when I did pen and ink work I was drawn in by the geometry of it all I wanted to translate it into something materialbasedrdquo she explainsSurrounded by exposed brick walls in Vadodara she found herself drawn to them adopting the brick into her practice in 2012 She confesses that she didnrsquot see herself spending a single day in Mumbai after her time in Gujarat ldquoMost artists choose to stay back because of the comfort and financial convenience But for a Mumbai girl it was too comfortablemdashI prefer a balance between being busy and restingrdquo Gavankar saysHaving returned she found that she had evolved as an artist in more than one way In the past the work she made for exhibitions was projectbased now she was creating for herself and soaking in her own sculptural work In her stints as a visiting faculty member at architectural institutes Gavankar has done her own share of learningmdashas she plays with a variety of materials including corten steel and brass ldquoMy intention is always focused on the formmdashwhich is the prioritymdashthe material comes laterrdquo she declaresGavankarrsquos talents in experimentation and innovation define the mural she created in 2022 for Sakshi Gallerymdashher very first ldquoWe were so excited to have Teja on board with us that we immediately invited her to work on the galleryrsquos external facade The result is a stunning mural which glows at nightrdquo says the galleryrsquos director Geetha MehraThe key challenge she says was the uneven nature of its external facade ldquoThis project made me reimagine what a mural could be since most of them are envisioned as painted worksrdquo the artist says ldquoI chose bricks as the medium they reflect the basic cuboid shape of the gallery building The bricks transfer a sense of the threedimensional onto something twodimensional on a tangible facade in Colabarsquos Pasta Lanerdquo The mural is akin to an optical illusion inviting passersby to relook and rethinkThe geometry in her works is matched by the philosophy and metaphysics she engages with Consider the sculptures she will be presenting at the Triennale titled Neti Neti ldquoIt is centred on the idea of neither this nor that The artwork takes the form of two cones that partially merge into each other sharing some common elements These shared components shift between the cones creating an everchanging and unstable situation when viewers interact with the piecerdquo she describesThrough Neti Neti Gavankar responds to the Triennalersquos 2024 edition Common Ground and its theme ldquoThe interplay between the cones represents the duality of completeness and incompleteness Ultimately they converge to form a larger unified whole representing the concept of Advaita where the material world transcends into the realm of eternityrdquo the artist explains