Visiting Artists...

Ajay kanwall

Sculpture artist Ajay Kanwall showed a good selection of really interesting sculpture works.
Ceramics is his chosen medium but he uses it a way to produce pieces that play with what we think we see and what we actually see with his main body of work is all about the theme of 'illusion and reality'. A really interesting piece was his chair made with a steel frame but the wooden slats forming the seat were actually ceramic mouldings. "guaranteed life expectancy over 5000 years' was a brilliant title for the piece and this fun, childish way of producing brain teasing works but with a really well researched idea is great to witness. I especially liked his floating rocks and nuts and bolts in a tank of water.
i'm really drawn to his works and the way he uses recycled materials, electrical equipment and fun and his piece using 500 recycled electric pylon insulators was inspiring to see especially when he told the story of giving away all the pieces as tea cups to visitors as they left, not sure how often that sort of thing happens here?
His collaboration pieces were also very interesting in the way he doesn't know what the other artists are going to make and only when they come together does he build something from it. I think thats a brilliant idea. When I was young me and dad would play a game where i would draw the head of a person on a piece of paper and fold it down so he couldn't see it, he would then draw the body, me the legs and him the feet and only when we unfolded it did we see what we'd made and this idea of Ajay's really reminded me of this.

Following Ajay was Tridip Sarma who struggled through the language barrier to give a great talk on his works. All the pieces were revolving around memories, heritage and his local environment and his sculptures were beautifully made. I especially liked his latest piece, a larger than life person melting from one side.

A really well presented pair of talks from two very inspiring artists.