Know Our Jury for Abir India’s First Take 2023: Shampa Shah
09/08/2023
The seventh edition of Abir India’s First Take 2023 is in the selection process. ‘First Take’ gives space for rising young artists across India is now become guiding lights in the contemporary Indian Art scene. The response to the open call of Abir India’s First Take 2023 alone signifies a tempting story of this remarkable and authentic endeavour; more than 2800 artworks from over 1400 entries from 488 cities. The jury will select the best out of the lot, and ten awards in total are awarded.
The selection process is challenging due to the number of submissions and the quality of the works submitted from various domains. The final display will bring one hundred artworks and art lovers jointly, with talks, symposia and meetups with senior artists, art historians, art critics, curators and investors. Shampa Shah is an Artist who is part of Abir India’s First Intake 2023 and offers her expertise to this grant selection process.
Shampa Shah is a renowned ceramic artist who has won the first-ever Jyotsna Bhatt Ceramics Award 2021. Her art practice, mainly in clay, brings back the dialogue between the traditional and the modern in style and form and overlaps her approach to writing and curating. Her decades-long journey through mediums brings the mastery of the language of firing and kilns, glazes, and shapes reflected as natural appeal.
Indigenous Practice
Shampa Shah’s language of clay is rooted in Indian indigenous traditions of India which amalgamate the nature of mundane life and Art practice. The influence of indigenous practices reflected in Shampa’s artworks, and the continual improv, experiment and elegance in ceramic art is an exploration of another world. She blends modern design, techniques, and materials elements with ancient traditions and maintains unique idioms which echo modernist moorings.
Shampa Shah | indianceramicstriennale
“The way I can’t predict my dreams, I can’t possibly figure out the impact of this Covid experience on my ceramic forms. Though I find myself contemplating more organic ways of living these days, I think of shifting to terracotta because of its local availability, less fuel consumption etc. It will also give me more opportunities to work with the indigenous potters of my locality. If this shift occurs, my work will change on many levels”
-Shampa Shah
Work and Life
Shampa Shah is a five-time recipient of the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS) Awards and was awarded the Junior National Fellowship of the Ministry of Human Resource and Development and the Roopankar Fellowship of Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal. When she was head of the Ceramic Section at Indira Gandhi National Museum of Man (IGRMS) Bhopal for 21 years, she did guidelines for exhaustive research and documentation on the pottery traditions of India and a host of traditional folk and tribal artists of India.
Stoneware and iron Variable size. indianceramicstriennale
As a curator, mentored major exhibitions for IGRMS on the theme of folk and tribal `Mythologies of India’. She was an advisor museologist and folklorist to conceptualise the newly formed Madhya Pradesh Tribal Museum, Bhopal. She has published widely on India’s contemporary art and storytelling practices, including Tribal Crafts of M.P. from Mapin. Her best-known works are a fusion of plant and animal physiques from a series called Transformation.
