Rekha Srinivasan

The ability to make objects of everyday utility is what draws me to be a maker. The humility of clay as a material is what draws me to be a potter. My life-long love affair with the work of the countless, nameless terracotta folk-potters of India has informed my quiet, gentle forms: my functional work is intended to be an aesthetic foil for the food and drink that it holds. The theatre of the wood-fired surface fulfils the more dramatic aspects of my personality. The wide variation in colour and the visual evidence of dynamic flame- and ash- path on the clay surface as it traverses the kiln, contrast dramatically with the forms. Colour is such a fundamental part of everyday life in India: from our fabrics to our houses, from our rituals to our food, there is hardly anything more quintessentially Indian than colour. I have recently started incorporating brightly coloured surfaces on my work, attempting to mimic the effect of peeling paint on weathered wooden and metal surfaces. The boat forms I am currently making are inspired by the traditional river-boats of Bengal. Bengal is a land crisscrossed with rivers, the water is often thick with boat traffic. My source of inspiration is not uncommon, local culture is filled with music and poetry referencing the boats as a metaphor for life and seeking, for migration and journey. While often these boats have weathered naked wood surfaces, many boats have become canvasses, covered with color. The visual memory of these gentle, elegant, and weathered wooden boats drifting downstream on moonlit nights are recollections from the Bengali movies of my youth, evoking feelings of stability on the one hand, and fragility on the other; contrasting feelings of romance, melancholy and joy. It is these contrasting emotions that I am pursuing by making these boat forms. The carved, textured surface reference hewn wood or worn metal, and makes the work feel somehow monumental and grounded. The long gentle curves of the rim and the base give a contrasting sense of movement and vulnerability. The dark wood-fired clay surfaces bring to my mind a certain solemnity and gravitas: an allegory for the more serious side of life perhaps. When the same dark forms are mono-printed with brightly coloured underglaze, the impression of weathered yet cheerfully painted wood gives me joy and reminds me of the more light-hearted aspects of life.
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