Pratiksha Shome
Daroz Pandurangiah, a renowned ceramic artist, was born in the southern Indian state of Telangana in 1944. With his enchanted hands and limitless imagination, he transforms a lump of clay into an incomparable piece of art. He earned his certificate in Applied Arts and Design in Sculpture from the College of Fine Arts and Architecture in Hyderabad in 1968 before going on to earn his MFA from the Faculty of Fine Arts at MS University Vadodara in 1972 with a focus on ceramics. received the National Academy Award for Ceramics from the Delhi-based Lalit Kala Akademi.
Courtesy: artalive
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Over the course of his forty-year association with clay, P.R. Daroz’s ceramics have captured India’s transformation from household vessel to sculpture and architectural installation. Daroz has received praise for a number of solo performances both domestically and overseas throughout the course of his successful career. The most well-known of them were staged at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai in 1984, the Max Mueller Bhavan in Hyderabad and Pune in 1985, Yohan Stores in Brunei in 1989, the Pundole Art Gallery in Mumbai in 2000 and 2008, Art Heritage in Delhi in 2003, and the ABS Bayers Art Gallery in Baroda in 2004.
He has furthermore taken part in a number of regional, national, and international group performances. They include the Asian and Australian Bowl Exhibition, Lalit Kala Studio, New Delhi (1981), Indian Triennal of International Art, New Delhi (1986), OBIDOS International Biennale, Portugal (1987), the National Biennale of Art, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal (1988), the 3rd World Ceramic Triennial, Zagreb, Yugoslavia (1990), 2nd Beijing International Art Biennale, China (2005), Pravah and the Inaugural show, Harrington Street Art Centre, Calcutta (2010).
Ceramic camp, Max Mueller Bhavan, Hyderabad, and Pune (co-ordinator; 1985) are among the camps and workshops in which Daroz frequently participates and serves as coordinator. J. Swaminathan, who passed away, invited me to establish and launch a ceramics workshop at Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal (1986–1987). participated in the World Ceramic Symposium in Yugoslavia and La’sal in 1989, ran a ceramic mural workshop at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda in 1999, organised mural workshops in Spain in 2006, Thailand in 2007 and at the Uttarayan Foundation in Baroda in 2009, and participated in the International Artists Workshop in Istanbul in 2003.
His impressive list of public commissions includes the mural at the Sardar Patel Planetarium in Baroda in 1976, a mural of Large Stupa series pots at the Hyatt Regency in New Delhi in 1991, a mural at the American study centre in Delhi in 1997, a mural and columns at the Hotel Spice Island in Chennai in 1998, a ceramic mural for Reliance Industries in Navi Mumbai in 2008, and a ceramic mural for Wadhwa developers at the “Platina”
Daroz has received several honours for his contributions to the field of Indian ceramics from governmental organisations as well as international art juries. They consist of the OBDIOS International Biennale Medal and Trophy from Portugal (1987), Awarded a senior fellowship by the HRD Department of culture, Government of India, New Delhi (1998), National Award for Ceramics Lalit Kala Academy, Delhi (2004), and Honourable Degree, 3rd World Ceramics Symposium, Zagreb, Yugoslavia (1990) for creativity in ceramics. Elected as a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, Geneva (1990).
Daroz is a potter renowned for his daring and avant-garde methods who has worked in several registers. If he has made functional dinnerware, he has also experimented with abstract shapes and made animal sculptures out of pure joy. In order to produce works of absolute virtuosity, he uses the materiality of clay in combination with his ease of ability and technique. His ceramic pictures explore and dramatise the conflict between form and function.
