Contemporary jewellers
Lalique, Faberge and Tiffany reinvented the idea of decorative, taking it beyond sheer wealth and luxury to the realm of the artistic. Each piece of enamelled art they created had value that lay not in the material but its treatment.
Peter Carl Fabergé’s easter art works have entered the cultural heritage of the world, valued just as much as paintings and sculptures of Old Masters.
At a recent show Enamel Revisited V, a group of 10 Indian artists including Shruti Dev, Seema Uppal, Triveni Mahajan and Kavita Dhankar have tried to take the ancient craft of jewellers and transform it into a contemporary art form. The effect is something like studio pottery; here, the enamelled art is like a combination of a two dimensional painting with elements of sculpture built into it, as is the case with male-female dyads in Kana Ram’s works interacting in urban locales at multiple levels with each other and the viewer.
Instead of precious metals that form the basis of jewellery, artists such as Veenu Shah, Aanandita Kishore and Ritu Sangal have chosen to work on steel and copper that allows them scope to explore larger images and abstract ideas. The surface itself is worked upon: embossed, cut, abraded and on this enamel made of glass and additives like silica, potash is sifted and fired in a kiln at 750 and 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Each piece is fired at least three times and sometimes upto 15 times, so that different colours, shades and patinas can be fused onto the metal, allowing it to take on a translucent quality.
Jyoti Singh’s deceptively simple circular composition, with embossed bead-like lines and protrusions breaking the surface of multi-hued surface, reminds one of Shunga terracotta plaques while presenting the idea of circle of life in a contemporary fashion. The entire show reverberates with historicism, and aesthetics, based on techniques and artistic traditions of various epochs.
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