Kaveri Bharath, Visiting Professor, Global Arts, SIAS is showcasing a solo show, Fifty-50, which opened on the evening of 8 August, 2025, at Espace 24 (the gallery of the Alliance Francaise of Madras). After a very warm welcome by the Director of the Alliance, and a small cake cutting to commemorate the artist’s birthday, the doors were opened by the artist’s close family. Krea faculty members, Dr Akhila Ramnarayan, Dr Gowhar Fazili, Dr Annu Jalais, Prajwal Parajuly, and Sara Abraham attended the opening too.
The show has a collection of ceramics ranging from sculptural installations to functional cups and plates, as well as some mini ceramic vases framed by quilted textile panels, also made by Kaveri. There are also watercolour paintings and pencil sketches on display. A set of shelves with 50 ceramic drinking forms on it, is titled “50 Cups”, and beside it is a wall full of pencil and charcoal drawings of 5 faces, titled collectively as “50 Mugs”!
The exhibition also has a corner with colours, pencils, and paper set up on an easel and another sheet of paper that scrolls down the wall, where the visitors and viewers are invited to leave their mark, by adding a squiggle or drawing.
The exhibition features works from her own studio as well as from ones she’s made at other studios, over the years. The oldest piece in the show being a vase from 1999, and the more recent pieces being from her time in Japan in April-May 2025. There are even pieces that she made/painted as recently as July 2025!
Kaveri herself will be at the gallery on the 14, 17, and the 22 of August, if you would like to see it and get a personal guided tour of the exhibition. The gallery is at the Alliance Francaise on College Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai. The timings are 10.30 am to 6.30 pm, including Sundays. However it will be closed on Independence Day and Krishna Jayanti, (15 and 16.Aug). The last day to be able to catch the show is 22 of August.
Artist’s Statement:
The main impetus to have this show was my 50th birthday. Fifty seemed like a significant milestone and cause to celebrate. Every aspect of this show – the venue, the ceramics, quilted panels, sketches, and the paintings – is significant to my life and work.
Inspired by my grandfather’s sculpting, I always played in mud and clay as a kid. Reconnecting to clay in my adult life, at Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry, I learnt the ways of clay from Ray and Debby. Their generosity and ways of seeing have given me a lifelong love for ceramics and teaching too! These last 30+ years of making, teaching, and thinking through clay are represented in the ceramics on display here.
I managed to find my way to a life in art and then eventually in clay, while spending almost every day in the early 1990s at the Alliance Francaise de Madras, learning French and working on plays with Magic Lantern. This makes this venue all the more special to have this milestone celebration in.
When I was restricted from working in my studio due to health concerns after a miscarriage, I learnt to quilt with my grandmother and channeled into the fabric, my creative urge to make. As a “thank you” nod to that phase and learning, I have included a few quilted frames here.Although I more or less stopped sketching since I took up clay, the pandemic lockdowns re-kindled my urge to use pencil and paper again. I found a patient guide in the Chennai theatre and watercolour artist, Dhanushkodi. With his encouragement and guidance over Skype, I even ventured into watercolours, a medium that I had always feared. The pencil drawings and watercolour paintings here are from that period and after.
Although this is supposed to be a “solo” show, no one can truly make it alone. I am because you are. And so, there is the interactive corner, where you get to leave your mark on this show, too. Interact with the marks left by others and leave a mark of your own.
All of this put together is 50-Fifty!
50-50 of ceramics and other media
50-50 of old work and new
50-50 of the future and of nostalgia
50-50 of me and of you.