JOIE DE VIVRE
by Adil Writer & Sujata Bajaj
When two creative worlds meet, something luminous takes form. One shaped by architecture and clay, the other by colour and abstraction; each carrying its own rhythm and desire.
Architecture was Adil's first language — a world of measured lines and precision. Clay came later, bringing a different vocabulary: one of touch, transformation, and chance. When Sujata Bajaj, one of India's foremost contemporary artists based in Paris, joined him at Mandala Pottery in Auroville, these sensibilities began to speak to one another: earth meeting pigment, patience meeting pulse. Her practice, shaped by the flamboyance of Paris and chromatic intensity, met the restrained, experimental character of Auroville's red earth and his soda- and wood-fired surfaces.
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The collaboration unfolded through curiosity, as a negotiation between colour and clay, between her spontaneous gestures and his structural instincts. Then shimmer entered the conversation… "Let's add some bling!", said Sujata. And touches of gold and silver, never before used in the studio as post-firing techniques, crept into the vocabulary!
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Two carousels spin on an axis, and sets of platters and shields perch quietly on the wall. Each piece carries both restraint and exuberance, gesture and structure, stillness and spark; an amalgam of both aesthetics, widening the boundaries of both practices.
What remains is a collection born of trust and play, of clay that learned to bling and colour that learned to rest. "Finally," says Sujata, "I realised Adil truly wanted to collaborate with me; his faith brought me to Auroville. This meeting of fire and light, earth and imagination, became something neither of us could have made alone."
In that quiet space between difference and discovery, this body of work found its joie de vivre!
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Part of Fuel to the Fire at Gallery Art & Soul
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FUEL TO THE FIRE
Co-curated by Adil Writer & Shayonti Salvi
Preview: 11th November 2025, 6 pm - 9 pm
Exhibition: 12th November - 11th December 2025
Gallery Art & Soul, Mumbai
In today's art world, invisible lines too often separate painters from ceramic artists, sculptors from metalworkers, and "fine art" from "craft." Yet these divisions are not intrinsic to creativity; they are constructs born of hierarchies and markets. All artists, regardless of medium, share the same impulse: to give form to emotion, thought and human experience.
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At the Art of India show a few years ago, we, Shayonti and Adil, were struck by how powerful works in diverse media sat comfortably together under one roof, yet were separated by medium. Why should art that springs from the same creative source be divided by material? That moment sparked an idea: to consciously dissolve these boundaries and explore what happens when artists from different media collaborate to work together.
Over the past year, this vision has unfolded beautifully; from artists travelling from Paris, Dhaka, and Mumbai to ceramic studios in the forests of Auroville, to those working remotely yet remaining deeply connected. As Tarana Khubchandani's Gallery Art & Soul reopens in its new avatar, it brings together this extraordinary confluence of artists and materials. In the language of creation, after all, there is no divide…only the timeless dialogue between hand, heart and earth.
CONTACT
RESIDENCE
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Adil B Writer
Sharnga, Auroville
Tamil Nadu 605101, India
Tel: +91 413-2622724
adilbw@gmail.com
STUDIO
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Mandala Pottery,
Dana, Auroville,
T.N. 605101, India
Tel: +91 413-2622685
mandalapottery@gmail.com
