Spiritual experiences, artistic expressions

From 2002-2014, Manjari Sharma took part in a lot of exhibitions and it left her uninspired. So, she took a hiatus. Around this time, she also left her job of an architecture professor. But the clay kept calling her back and she set up a pottery studio. Her students from college came to learn from her. In the meanwhile art critic and curator Uma Nair saw her works and thought that Manjari was wasting her time and prodded her to return. Titled ‘Sculptour’, the exhibition, at Lalit Kala Akademi, is a result of that prodding.       

For the former professor at School of Planning and Architecture, art has been a journey of finding herself. “I do it to find my deeper self and understand life with more clarity,” she says. She was introduced to meditation and spirituality as a kid and it became a part of her life. But as a teenager, she began questioning its purpose. The rebellious kid, however, soon missed the serenity that meditation brought. “Spirituality had given me such profound and beautiful experiences like feeling one with the universe that I couldn’t connect with other things. So, I returned to it,” she says.

But this time around, she returned with a perplexing thought — what’s the point of finding the inner self with spirituality if one still has to return to the bodily experiences. She found her answer in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s maxim — We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience. “It changed my life. I began to see abstract as real and I saw no reason to create that and got immensely fascinated by the human body and life,” she says and continues, “When I saw the body of a friend who had passed away, I realised there was no nuance to the once so agile body. The twist of the hand, tilt of the eye, smirk on the face were all gone. We are humans for such a short period of time and thus, my works celebrate human body and its expressions. I enjoy watching people. When you see a human being, you see desire at play and the lust for life.”

As one looks at the 40-odd artworks, one begins to understand what the 52-year-old is trying to explain. They look like human figures and still one can’t be sure. She says, “There is no difference between good and bad. Pain is beautiful and so is pleasure. My works are celebrating the idea of being; they don’t have to be beautiful. Why do you have to be a certain way or somebody else? It’s so sad that people are judged on their looks. That’s why I feel there is so much beauty in anonymity. When no one is looking, you can be anything. There should independence to be anyone.”

All her works — bowls, jars, human figures and teapots — narrate a profound story like of mother and child’s love or a hand on a teapot expressing its reluctance of letting the content inside be revealed etc.

Manjari says that she is always blank before making anything. “I surrender to the moment and the final product surprises me as well,” she says. But then how do all her works look like they are related? “It means I am going to the deepest core every time before creating them and thus there is this continuity,” she says.   

She has kept the colours minimal so that the concept remains clear. According to Manjari, her works have a personality of their own and tell a story. But there are good chances that the buyer might just see it as a creative teapot and not understand the profound spiritual experience which caused it. “My utility items are also emotive beings but once it is sold, it is the buyer’s prerogative to interpret accordingly,” she says.  

But why clay and not any other medium? “Clay is like a newborn baby. It offers you no resistance unlike other mediums. It is the most powerful medium. It can transform lives. People become happier beings,” she says and has her kitty full of tales where art therapy has changed lives. Manjari, a mother of two, is currently enjoying the rave reviews she is getting from the art frat.