Disk s

As I was writing about creating cracks in my work as an aesthetic choice, I had a wish to upload a few of my disc forms as an example.

Here, I am uploading almost the whole body of work that I did for a show, I shared the space with a friend.

I am quoting what Ray wrote for my catalogue :

" Antra and Oli Ghosh applied to exhibit at Jehangir in 2002. Antra had just finished her MFA in painting from MS University, Baroda. At that time her experience with clay was limited to a cursory attempt at tile and mural making. Now, after the better part of three years as student and my assistant at the Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicherry, the result of a thoughtful journey with clay is on view.

Antra experimented with action painting as a student in Baroda. But when she poured a viscous white slip onto a thick slab of grogged stoneware there began a dialogue with material - clay - which she had never quite achieved with paint on canvas. Taking inspiration from the clay, Antra saw a story unfolding in the process. Clay began to reveal its character through her hands and she began to see a clear impression of herself in the clay. Slinging a wet clay slab onto the floor four, five, six times, stretching it to its physical limits, the whole body participates. There is a level of unpredictability in the way the slabs open under the stretch; fissures, holes, cracks appear, revealing layers below the surface. And Antra discovered a parallel to the performance workshops she had enjoyed so much in Baroda.

'My work revolves around the expression of me - Antra - the surrounding - this world; experiences, influences, ambitions and achievements; understanding myself and the others. Churning is all about realization of self.'

Antra. Stanza. Refrain. Shiku. Again and again. Mata mata. Center. Naka. Ideograms - repeated motifs impressed in clay. The spiral. The sea. The subconcious. The self. Holding all extremes, the positives and negatives, the complexities of life and being. And the churn. From Indian mythology. Bringing it all up. Into view. Articulated in an abstract texture, density and form as the process unfolds until, at one moment, frozen by fire at 1300 degrees.

The work on view is limited in visual range - an exercise in subtlety and depth and light. It is the outcome of an investigation of one clay body, one slip and one base glaze with three oxide additions and one repeated form - the disk - which I read unquestionably as Antra. The mood runs from genuinely somber to optimistic, with the attempt to coax light from out of the depths of dense earthy stuff.

This show is a dignified expression of Antra's struggle for direction, clarity and identity as an artist and individual. It is a distillation of her selves as painter, performer and ceramist at a time of maturation, a time with which we can all identify. Risky and intensely human. "

Ray Meeker

Pondicherry

April 2005

I would like to mention the name of my photographer friend who has taken these images - Joginder Singh, jogisingh.com

:)

Thank you for reading.