Ray Meeker All the King's Horses…
November 9, 2008

GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com


Ray Meeker: "All the King's Horses…"
November 9th to 29th, 2008


In his third solo exhibition with Nature Morte, Pondicherry-based ceramic artist Ray Meeker continues to pursue the environmental theme that he first took up in 1969. "All the King's Horses…" which, apparently without irony, Meeker calls a work in progress, opens at Nature Morte on Sunday, November 9th from 5 to 7 pm and will continue through Saturday, November 29th.

In a series of large globe-like jars, modeled on early funerary urns from Tamil Nadu (500 B.C. to 500 A.D.), Meeker takes a dim view of a future in which India and China parrot the unbridled—and clearly unsustainable—consumption patterns of the USA.

"The American Lifestyle is not Up for Negotiation"

George H. W. Bush
The Earth Summit
Rio de Janeiro, 1992


The works in the show are large ceramic sculptures, each with a commanding presence. In works such as Double Helix and Ozymandias, Meeker explores a formal language that is both mechanical and organic, implying a fusion of the two into something like an archeological relic. A very large work of this type is permanently installed in the courtyard of the Habitat Centre in New Delhi.

Other works, such as Untitled I and II (Black and Splash) use the sculpted ceramic form as a canvas for abstract brushwork, creating a tension between spontaneous gestures and the more solid and pierced three-dimensional support.

Ray Meeker was born in New York in1944 and raised in Southern California. He has lived in Pondicherry since 1971 and with his wife Debra Smith founded and runs the ceramic studio Golden Bridge Pottery. Meeker has also trained more than two generations of Indian studio potters and his aesthetic influence can be felt in the works of a number of protégés, including Kristine Michael, Vineet Kacker, Manisha Bhattacharya and Anjani Khanna. His works have been exhibited extensively throughout India for the past twelve years. His impressive roster of projects include a commissioned temple for Protima Bedi's Nrityagram outside of Bangalore and experimental architecture that turned mud brick kilns into stabilized structures for low-cost housing.

Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays. For more information, contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215.

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