A sensual fold that looks most inherently like a woman's cleavage, a small buttoned dot that looks like the dress that will launch a thousand ships. It smoothens into a sleek vase and for a middle class critic it was a must- have. This vase of Jyotsna Bhat's which I bought for a mere Rs 300, about 10 years ago sits on my table and speaks to me about her inherent fascination for Teal Blue a colour somewhat differential but distinctive in the world of glazing and ceramics. It also speaks to about her felicity with the feminine form in clay which can speak about fantasy in a world ruled by instinct. Nature writ large on every facet Jyotsna Bhat has always something more to say about nature in each of her works. Teal blue is an old recurring tonality and in this show two teal blue platters echo the residual rhythms of nature's inertness.
Just like Thoreau, it is the natural world and our place in it, which Jyotsna Bhat has been exploring over the course of her career. A sculptor who belongs to a family of chemists, can perhaps describe Jyotsna's sculptural tenor and her leanings towards unraveling the inherent chemistry of the porous nature of the earthy glazes that she embellishes her ceramic ware with.
‘The basic equipment for studio pottery or any art form are technique and creativity' says Jytosna. ‘Techniques can be taught but the ingredient of latent craftsmanship needs to be nurtured' says she, as she conducts workshops all over the nation and shares valuable insights and inputs on the measure of the accidental and the incidental in ceramics along with the quest for technical virtuosity. ‘I have always tried to create something more than just a mere platter,' says she. ‘This is a matte blue glaze which I have used for many years'.
Obviously training at Baroda enhanced her sense of form, texture and colour. But certainly it is her initial training at Brooklyn at USA that gives her a resonant lineage of minimalist notions while creating ceramic ware.The scientific temper becomes the enriched inheritance and you see a perfection of technique not quite seen in a number of potters in the nation.
Working visually on such an important and complex topic such as nature, her ceramic ware explore a quiet diversity and, by extension, challenge our cultural values. It is in this arena where human endeavour touches and disrupts the natural world that she finds the greatest inspiration for his work. The nature of things are as integral as nature itself.
Dealing with an emotive topic such as the owl or the flower in bloom along with the bud that raises cosmic consciousness you think at once of its emotive powers and its impact on man. ‘The flowers belong to my tulip series,' says she. ‘The ivory is a white glaze in which I try to get a brush of pink so that it looks like a blush tone, I turn the direction of the flame to achieve it. 'It is the balancing of thick and thin glaze that gets the right colour. I think I always want to recreate some simple element from nature.'
Interestingly while you live with nature while you create you can do so while maintaining a certain detachment or distance from the topic and the surfeit of images. In her tall vase like creation that looks more like a flower that is just formed of a tubular sensuousness of a few lithe elongations it seems as if the sculptor-potter does not challenge the viewer with abundant imagery nor does she dictate answers, but instead she creates nature's intent in tranquil traces aware that an abundant overloaded approach destroys the impact of art, and it is the reflection of a visual intellectual discipline that is vital for a memory that is nurtured long after the scene of a first glimpse.
Rather Jyotsna focuses on the serene qualities of a natural order based on harmony. We can see that clearly in the series of rounded spherical pots that have a lip or two that nestle a finger line space of Zen stillness. A quest for beauty through order? This beauty through order seems to transcend whimsy and certainly also includes solitude, loss and longing in a sanguine kind of way.
In her teal coloured vase with petals on its top rim she invests the inbuilt tenor of both change and harmony. These two dissimilar realities, change and harmony, provoke important questions which are the basis of his thinking and work. How do we maintain balance in a life full of change and still protect the systems which sustain us biologically? Biological and cultural change foster disruption if not chaos. Played out over time and space, the ability to adjust amid biological and cultural transformations is the question at the core of our existence.
Obviously she is close to nature and responds to its patterns. The single fish with the folds that look more like a drape is an ivory delight. The fish glazed in an ivory toned celadon toned timbre speaks about the ferment of fertility. ‘I did this with a low temperature at 1000 degrees so that it would crack, ‘says she'. I am generally more comfortable with the 1200-1300 degrees temperature. 'Ironically, for an artist to tackle temperature topics so complex and far reaching are only realized by experience, the ceramic focus has to be tight and yet suggestive of larger forces, provoking questions beyond the objects and the space itself. How can an artist do this? Jyotsna achieves this by setting up a group of repetitive, mutating and subliminally charged objects which mimic the evolutionary process itself like the owl and the birds that are in the twixt of conversing up a dialogue. In an atmosphere of silence and timelessness, she eloquently shapes ideas about fragile and complex interactions far more significant than the simplicity of suggestion.
Using embellishments sparingly, she enhances the aesthetical beauty in the pots in tones of striations or just the hint of a leaf that belongs so much to Shelley's Ode. Her pots are never disturbed, the textural terrain on her vases in this show are the result of deep contemplation. Could detailing of a rim or the slicing of a leaf to set a pattern be a disturbance of sorts? Or could it be the lingua franca of the debris of evergreen facets of nature? When Jyotsna Bhatt “disturbs” a pot, she does it with a great deal of thought.
Its like the alaap of Megha Malhar in which the note is milked by honeyed intensity. The platter with the billowing curvaceousness of the cloud speaks in the inventive measures of classical music's mutations. The lucidity of the flow of fluidity within the stoneware reflects how Jyotsna Bhatt has been successful in synchronizing the Zen element of minimal moorings with beauty.
The flower can become a slender necked installation that speaks of slick handling and tensile connections. Zen references abound in this show. Jyotsna brings a powerful aesthetic as well as a critical and open attitude to new ideas and processes, evident in the clean, balanced scale of the ware, culminated in a profound and content-rich collection that reflects the subtlety of an artistic sojourn in the uncanny world of clay.
