Size: 11.5 in | 29.21 cm (Diameter) , Hight 2.5 in | 6.35 cm
Year: 2012, Medium: Ceramic Mural in mixed media (Stoneware -Wood fired, thread weaving )
About Artist
“Nature never hurries. Atom by atom, little by little she achieves her work....” – Ralph Waldo Emerson And so it seems in the nature of Hina Bhatt’s work. Layer over layer she transforms her thoughts into form. Bridging materials, painterly brush-skills, colors and patterns (the innate sense evident in her elaborate Rangoli and Alpana). Sometimes, pulling out from deeper, her expertise of Digital Design. Sometimes, sweating over variants of clay-body, glaze-recipes, firing methods and sometimes, just sitting back to allow fire and clay to come together, like bird to song. Hina Bhatt did a BFA in Painting in 1993 and a post-graduation in Mural in 1995, both from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M S University of Vadodara, in Gujarat. Pottery was only an ‘optional subject’ at that time. A touch and go in the basics of hand- built pottery, mainly terracotta. The Quadrennial Fine Arts Fair was an opportunity for a few students deeply interested in pottery or ceramics. Hina was one of those few. She says, “I was always keen to learn and work with\new materials. Clay fascinated me the most. I was born in Kavant, in the Panchmahal district of rural Gujarat and was exposed early to rural traditional crafts (votive terracotta, silver jewelry, bead work etc.). Besides, nature itself is a great teacher, especially if you wander into places around villages and nearby forests”.
Hina remembers, that she would wander into the traditional potters’ clusters to observe their traditional craft process, routines and simple lifestyle. While in 2nd year of college, she visited ten such villages in that district and turned her study into a set of charcoal drawings.
She feels and states, “It was during these visits that I was impacted by rural life-style, their craft, the mountains, trees, birds, flowers, and also changing seasonal landscapes. This constantly inspires the imagery and language of my art even today.” Though studies in the Mural section offered a chance to explore different materials there wasn’t any formal training in ceramic. Her passion led her to constantly explore it as a medium on her own. Ceramics being a process-intensive medium, it requires dedicated infrastructure. It was expensive and nearly impossible to set up a studio and follow her heart right after she completed her studies. Thus, while waiting for opportunities to immerse herself into the magic of the medium, Hina worked at two commercial ceramic units; painting on dinner ware, designing prototypes for gift- articles, working with slip casting and bone China. In 1996, she learnt and then explore Digital Art at ‘Art Underground’ Digital Art Gallery, staying with it for nearly three and a half years. It was a rather intriguing medium at that time. Hina mastered it well enough to teach and co-conduct various workshops all over the country. A short stint at an advertising agency added a new perspective to her realm of graphic design. An accomplished ceramicist today Hina remains essentially self-taught, learning by trial-n- error, from books, through workshops, and from those mentors who are ready to guide and share. Her journey to bachelors’ degree in Painting, post-graduation in Mural and work in Digital medium it is now added advantage to work in Ceramic. Like the cyclic patterns of nature Hina too takes delight in going through a cycle of ‘learn- execute-practice-share’.
Artist Statement
"Art is Oxygen for me" Many things that I observe and absorb from day-to-day life, I narrate through my expressions or my thoughts, emotions, intuitive feelings and desires, but this is even more personal than that: it is about sharing the way i experience the world, which for many is an extension of their personality. It is the communication of intimate concepts that cannot be faithfully portrayed by words alone.
