Music was my first love, but it won’t be be my last.

From Sound to Clay: A Journey in Auroville

Julietta Kühle’s artistic path is rooted in a lifelong passion for rhythm and harmony. Before relocating to India in the late 1990s, she spent many years working within the dynamic German music industry. Her move to the International Community of Auroville marked a profound shift, initiating a new artistic love: clay.
Following an apprenticeship at Ray Meeker’s renowned Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicherry, Julietta began developing her own distinctive voice in ceramics. Her practice is defined by experimental surface techniques, specifically the transfer of photographic and graphic images onto clay.

The ICONS Series and Experimental Work

Julietta’s most recognized body of work, the ICONS series, explores cultural iconography with a playful and irreverent spirit. Inspired by a printing workshop with Sushma Anand, she transfers images of figures ranging from music and film stars to comic heroes and spiritual leaders. Her aesthetic deliberately celebrates the imperfections inherent in the process—the cracks and the blurriness—viewing them as a metaphor for the unpredictability of life itself. These works have been featured in numerous exhibitions and pottery markets across India, including a major solo show, ICONS, at the Kalakendra Gallery in Bharat Nivas (February 2020).
Beyond her tile work, Julietta is a versatile multimedia artist. Her 2020 exhibition also included an immersive installation featuring clay characters inspired by Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride. Her commitment to public art is demonstrated by her permanent installation of ICONS tiles on the wall of the European House in the International Zone.
For Julietta, whether through sound or sculpture or expressing herself as a writer, the artistic pursuit remains constant: “Each and every piece of art brings me a bit closer to the never-ending search for the divine truth and harmony.”

Contact: Julietta Kühle
Address: Arati 2, 605101 Auroville
Phone: 8903965726
Email: julietta.kuehle@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/pottery.auroville

I studied architecture at CEPT in Ahmedabad, where I learned to see form, space, and structure in everything around me. Later, I found clay or maybe it found me. It felt more direct, more alive.

In 2019, I moved to Auroville. I’ve been working at Mandala Pottery in Tamil Nadu, in the production line and also creating art installations. It’s a place where I get to experiment. Nature, fire, and community shape everything here.

I work with clay almost like it’s fabric. I fold it, stretch it, let it settle into shapes that feel like they’re just about to move. I’m especially drawn to Nerikomi layering colored or different types of clay bodies. It’s kind of like weaving, but with earth instead of thread. Some of these pieces are remarkably fragile, featuring intricate, detailed patterns. I usually fire those in electric or gas kilns (oxidation firing) for a clean look, using minimal glaze.

Then there’s the other side of my work, the bold pieces, the ones I fire with wood firing or soda firing (reduction firing). I let the fire take over there. The ash, the flame they change everything. I don’t try to control it too much.

I like working both ways—careful and wild. It helps me think in different directions and keeps the process fresh. Even though the techniques vary, I’m always chasing the same thing: a sense of movement. Like the clay is caught mid-motion, just for a second, before it comes to rest.

I seek to create a new narrative dedicated to the future of humanity. I was born in an artist family in Kyoto, Japan. I started calligraphy study since age seven. Then started to learn figurative sculptures in a public art high school in Kyoto.In 1994 I became a professional wood sculptor through the apprenticeship in Tokyo. I practice & teach art in general in Auroville. I also organise a collective cultural/social programs under the title The ONE ASIA project. I am also known as an oriental tea lover and a practitioner of the Way of Tea.”

Links:
jyotinaokieri.com
oneasiaproject.org

Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/jyotinaoki.eri

Works:

“In my expression, I seek the unity of opposites – asymmetry and balance, chaos and harmony, imperfection and attention to detail. Texture and rhythm are essential elements to step out of the self and touch intangible qualities such as emptiness, silence, translucency, weightlessness and the vibratory fields of matter and light. My work seeks to celebrate the delight of living. Life’s qualities of abundance, generosity and hope fuel my creativity as does Nature – ocean, landscapes, and life forms. My creative process relies on spontaneity, moment-to-moment guidance, and serendipity. I work through hand-building techniques, primarily using stoneware clay with slips, glazes, stains and luster for decorative effects. The works are fired in a wood-fueled kiln at 1250 degree Celsius”.

contact:
e-mail: priya.sundaravalli [at] auroville.org.in
address:
tel: +91

link:
images on google photos

work:

link:
http://www.adilwriter.com

Form is her ever attractive inner drive. A thought, an idea, a vision starts the process of creating and then while making intuitive energy takes lead. Finally the fire completes the artworks.  The three mediums interflow to create an artwork.

contact:
address: Auromodel, Auroville
e-mail: supriya [at] auroville.org.in

website:
www.supriyamm.art

work:

Sizes of first 8 objects:
1. Feel of life : 10 x 22 x 27 cms – Each
2. Fabric Pod : 29 x 45 x 27 cms
3. Landscape vases : 25 x 28 x 9 cms – Each
4.Set of teabowls : 9 x 9 x 9 cms – Each
5. Landscape jars : 21 x 11 11 cms – Each
6. Landscape vases – (medium) – 14 x 10 x 10 cms
7. Dish with handle – 14 x 16 x 15 cms
8. womb trpitych – 25 x 84 x 13 cms

I am ready to share it with those who keep the inner child happily alive. I’m always looking for play in work. I define play as a sense of not really knowing what is going to happen next. It’s a luxury to play all the day. I am first to see what comes out and the feeling of being a witness of a miracle makes my day.

contact:
e-mail: aurokatrusya [at] gmail.com
tel: (91) 0413 2622769, (91)9787571633

link:
www.havefunpottery.com

work:

Committed to my life in Auroville, an international township since over eight years now, the focus of my recent work has been images, objects, colors and textures of India. India, my own country, has meant so much more to me after being influenced by Auroville philosophy and life. In my recent shows, I have tried to search for a meaning in these myriad images floating in my mind after several visits to interior countryside.

Working under the guidance of Ray Meeker, at the Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry in 2005 gave me a much-needed direction in my work thereafter. Since then, I have focused on developing forms that were inspired by rural Rajasthan, mainly its architecture and landscape.

Lately, I have been working on developing new forms that reflect my inner search for a perfect form. A form that strives to depict what I feel when I look at the daily life objects in rural India, be it a commemorative stone under a tree outside a village or the wooden pillars of a shrine in central India.

Having been trained as a Painter before my training in ceramics, I strive to create a large canvas in my work that can express freely. These days, preparing for Anagama Firing at Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry, has given me a chance to enhance these images by the effect of glazes and firing, creating interesting textures and patterns like hallows by wad marks and flame, as well as running ash on the surface.

The everlasting Search continues to find the deeper meaning of these forms and images of rural landscapes of India.

contact:
e-mail: rakheekane [at] gmail.com
address: Petite Ferme, Auromodele
tel: (91) 0413 2622515, (91) 9487572514

link:
aavartanpottery.blogspot.com/

work:

contact:
e-mail: kratu2007 [at] gmail.com
landline: 2622336,
cell phone: 9443045386

work:

Ange Peter came to India with her parents when she was two years old. She grew up in Auroville and completed her studies at the Sri Aurobindo’s International Center of Education in Pondicherry. Her first teachers in pottery were Ray Meeker and Deborah Smith from the Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry. Since then she has extensively traveled South East Asia, and completed a 6 month course with Japanese master Shibata Masaaki. She has since adopted the rare technique practiced by her Japanese master-Haiyu Slipware. This technique involves an intense interface with Nature. Ange usually works alone. The clay and glazes are made from scratch. Glazes are based on exclusively natural materials such as ash from the forest surrounding the pottery. No coloring stains or oxides are used other than iron oxide. The pieces are hand built and wood fired to a high temperature. The idea behind this work is that the energy put into all the details of preparing the materials comes out in the final finished piece and makes it vibrant and alive.

In fact the lesson I’m still struggling to learn is to do every task in life, however menial, with the same intention and care that I would put into creating my finest piece of art. This is because I have learned that the way I lead my life reflects in my work, and I cannot keep the two apart.

contact:
address: Samriddhi, Auroville
ph.: 0413 2623101, 08098700425
e-mail: ange [at] auroville.org.in

link:
www.angepeter.com

work: