Srabani Ghosh MRSS

A female Indian artist based in London, working across ceramic and paper media, I combine intricate traditional craft processes and multiple materials moulded in unexpected ways to retell stories of everyday moments. Born of the habit of collecting stories, my work often manifests as a series of unusual forms that are iterations of broader themes, which often have nuances of wider socio-political current events. The compulsion to tell these stories is a labour of love that can take me to places with my art that can be all-consuming in terms of time and scale and energy. My work aims to present audiences with a recognisable visual that sparks instant curiosity for the underlying narrative. 

Firing from a site with century-old ceramic activity, I place my practice at heritage brickworks HG Matthew in rural Buckinghamshire where I am able to challenge the boundaries of scale and form normally associated with ceramics. I predominantly work with glazed stoneware ceramics combined with overlooked traditional techniques of coloured slip inlay and sgraffito to achieve richly embellished monochrome surfaces. My work is characterised by fluid forms resembling flowing garments, but I have more recently started moving towards abstract figurative sculpture. Often focused on dorsal and lower extremities of the human body, these forms are as if frozen mid-motion. My work in all its forms carries, as its hallmark, an abundance of pattern, detail and symbolism rooted in my Indian heritage. 

As a woman from India who has lived in the UK for 25 years and having worked and travelled across Europe, I have been privy to experiences that are cross cultural and universal, yet very specific to unique local contexts. Through my creative practice I have felt and experienced clay and ceramic as a form of story-telling around identities and personhood through a gender lens, often touching on the dignity and passion of invisible people. Through my work with clay and paper, these are the stories I am compelled to turn into art and that I seek to share. 

 As one half of me remains anchored in India and the other in Europe, my pieces are stories of people, women and experiences within this context. Ultimately, though, they speak and interact with each other – bridging continents and connecting people.