Madhvi Subrahmanian
Indian studio potter.

Madhvi Subrahmanian is an Indian studio potter resident in the USA. She trained with Ray Meeker and Deborah Smith at the Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicherry in 1985 and established her first studio in Mumbai that same year. In 1989 she went to the USA, where she earned an MFA from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas in 1993. In the 1990s she also worked with prominent American ceramists Val Cushing, Warren Mckenzie, William Daley, Peter Beasecker and others.

After moving to Frankfurt, Germany with her husband in 1995, she returned to India, making her characteristic coil-built earthenware forms finished with terra sigillata and glazed surfaces. Since then she has returned to the USA and now lives and works in Princeton, New Jersey.

Subrahmanian draws inspiration drawn from natural forms representing fertility and abundance, which are often paralleled in ancient artifacts and contemporary art.

Artist's Statement

Most of my work in clay is built by layering coil over coil, with the form spiraling upward in a rhythm which is quiet and slow but not too different from the potter's wheel. The mark of the hand and the holes left behind by layering the coils leave a trace on the skin of the pot and give it a texture. The forms I am compelled to make repeatedly and explore sculpturally revolve around the theme of the container - one that holds, protects, and nurtures. The container oRen transforms into a pod, a seed, a shell and rests, finding its home in shallow plates and wide bowls. At other times the seed manifests itself on the surface shinning through as gleaming eyes enshrined into the just cut fruit. Working on the surface, I layer slips and glazes, firing each piece several times striving towards achieving, that effect of time often found on eroded landscapes.

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