Jyotsna Bhatt

Jyotsna Bhatt was born on March 6, 1940, in Mandvi, Kutch State (now Kutch, Gujarat). He studied at the Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay (now Mumbai) for a year. He subsequently joined the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in 1958 to study sculpture under Sankho Chaudhuri. There he became interested in ceramics. He studied ceramics with Jolyon Hofsted at the Brooklyn Museum School of Art in the Brooklyn borough of New York City in the United States in the mid-1960s. He returned to India and settled in Baroda (now Vadodara). In 1972, she joined the ceramics studio of the Department of Sculpture, Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda as a lecturer. She worked there for 40 years and retired as Head of the Ceramics Department in 2002.

Jyotsana Bhatt, a talented Baroda-based ceramist and potter, moved to Baroda from Mumbai in 1958 to learn sculpture from Sankho Chaudhuri. It was here that she discovered her interest in making three-dimensional figures, while anything flat did not arouse any interest in her. Ella Jyotsana, joined the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda for a formal degree. Training in Baroda improved my sense of form, texture, and color, she says.

Her ceramic works include images of dogs and cats. Clay toys are very distinctive, each separate from the other, each with its own distinct identity. She says: I hate repeating my forms and that's why I don't like advertising. Making identical outfits would bore me,

The dome of a wheel is one of her favorite shapes. She says she is so round, so serious and sensual. When the dome, made of clay, is partially dry, he cuts it, engraves it, joins it, and makes a design. There is a method to her work, each piece is first conceptualized, visualized, and then executed.

Since 1985, Jyotsana has been working as a reader at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. Baroda University. She married Jyoti Bhatt and accompanied him to New York. While she was there, she learned to enamel copper in a private studio.

Jyotsana says that she values the softness and contours of her work. She uses ornamental devices such as striations, meandering floral lines that resemble the curves of tapestries, or the white lace lines that appear on mud huts and in floor and wall paintings. She says that she uses colors and textures that she has obtained through judicious accidents or that arise from long and attentive practice.

Jyotsna Bhatt died on July 11, 2020, two days after suffering a stroke. She was cremated at the Vadi Wadi crematorium in Baroda.

BORN

March 6, 1940, at Mandvi, Kutch State

DIED

July 11, 2020, Vadodara

EDUCATION QUALIFICATIONS

1968 Post-Diploma in Sculpture, Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

1965-66 He studied Ceramics at the Brooklyn Museum School of Art, New York.

1962 Diploma in Sculpture, Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2006 Residual Rhythms, Umbral Gallery, New Delhi

2003 Cats and Pots, Bilmet Ceramics, Mumbai

2001 Artistic Heritage, New Delhi

1997 Artistic Heritage, New Delhi

1992 Cymroza Art Gallery, Mumbai

1989 Vithi Art Gallery, Vadodara

1966 Appel Gallery, New Jersey

1966 Gallery of Graphic Arts, New York

1966 Brooklyn Museum School of Art, New York

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2008 Baroda A Tale of Two Cities, (Part I), Sarjan Art Gallery, Vadodara

2008 In-depth, art and soul, Mumbai

2008.07 Ceramic sculpture, Ahmedabad

2002 Water, Delhi Blue Pottery, New Delhi

2002 Clay as canvas, Mumbai

2001 Potters in Peril, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai

2000 Tea Party, Mumbai Potters Association, Mumbai

2000 Animals of the Earth, Apparao Gallery, New Delhi

PARTICIPATIONS

Annual Exhibition 2006, Delhi Blue Pottery, New Delhi

2002 After Picasso, Kala Ghoda Festival, Mumbai