Kaveri Bharath is a potter, ceramic artist, and teacher, based in Madras (Chennai), with 25+ years of experience in making and teaching ceramics. She received the bulk of her training in handcrafted, functional stoneware and wood fired ceramics from Ray Meeker and Deborah Smith (Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry).
She has taught clay work, pottery, sculpture, glaze chemistry, kiln building, and firing methods for over two decades. She was a Visiting Faculty for Ceramics at NID, Ahmedabad, from 2013 to 2022. She has also set up studios, kilns and workspaces, including setting up the processes, sourcing of materials, and, in some cases (like that of The Spastics’ Society of Tamil Nadu), she also designed and developed products for the institutions.
She has curated shows of other contemporary ceramic artists in galleries in Chennai, and has exhibited her own sculptural work at galleries in Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, and New Delhi. She has sold her functional ware in shops and more recently, during the pandemic lockdowns, online. Although now primarily working in functional, utilitarian ceramics, Kaveri has also explored installations and sculptural art.
Her influences and interests range from theatre and art, to language, adolescent health, and even herpetology! She sincerely believes that nothing is really a “distraction”, and that if we let our interests and curiosity lead us, what we find/learn will only enrich and add to our core work. Working with the Global Arts at Krea, she aspires to bring in interaction with experts working in a variety of media, and through the courses that she teaches, she hopes to showcase the interwovenness of art, craft, mathematics, design, science, and the joy of working with one’s own hands, that is intrinsic to ceramics. She is keen to ensure that students are equipped with practical skills and hands-on, tactile creativity, for a life beyond theoretical academia.
