Reef Fragmented
2022
Hand-rolled stoneware, thread and brass fixings
Dimensions Variable
Trained as an architect, artist Nindya Bucktowar works to highlight relationships between bodies and physical or imaginative ‘space.’ Holding it open, falling through it, emptying it, paying homage to it, moving between disciplines and approaches as if moving through rooms of a house. In this house, there are many rooms. Drawings are important, henna patterns are important — also clay, leather, tiles, buildings, the city, the sea.
Bucktowar uses clay in a way that is close to the body, and close to the ‘wild’ and urban landscapes that she knows. A genuine kind of empathy with the material is communicated – both as an imaginative extension of the body, and as a completely literal chunk of ‘the earth’ that is everywhere. Having grown up in Mauritius, representations of rapidly eroding landscapes and ecosystems (due to climate change) appear to mirror a more intimate nostalgia for child-sized loves and losses. The world is in the body and the body is in the world.