Lubna Chowdhary
Lubna Chowdhary creates sculptural objects and site-specific artworks, working primarily in the field of ceramics. She has been shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize in Ceramics and has completed artists residencies at Camden Arts Centre, Victoria and Albert Museum London and IASPIS Stockholm. She lives and works in London.
Education
Born in Tanzania in 1964 to Indian parents, Lubna grew up on the outskirts of Manchester, in the 1970s. Having graduated in 3D Design from Manchester Metropolitan University she went on to study an MA in ceramics at the Royal College of Art, under the tutelage of Eduardo Paolozzi.
Career
Lubna Chowdhary creates bright, visceral installations from vibrantly hand-glazed ceramics that are extremely easy on the eye. Her work is geometric in its construction, taking complex networks of patterns and shapes and transforming them into three dimensional wall hangings.
She is highly acclaimed for her ceramic works, which subvert the traditional context and utility of the medium to address a longstanding preoccupation with urbanisation and material culture.
‘‘I am always trying to combine ideas and aesthetics from the eastern and western worlds…the eastern influence is a very strong part of my identity but I like to bring both sides together to tell a story.’’
In Lubna’s work both influences are ever-present in a push-and-pull dialogue that finds a fluent sense of resolution without being programmatic. A modernist purity of form duets seamlessly with a desire for exuberant colour and ornamentation.
Lubna Chowdhary’s ‘Sign’
‘’The complex modern world presents us with many competing narratives from a multiplicity of cultures. I use my work to try to negotiate a path between some of those narratives’’
Lubna creates all of her work by hand, developing each piece through a rigorous process of research, drawing and collaboration with her clients. The results are crisp and polished but maintain the tell-tale signs of the artist’s hand that always makes hand-crafted work that much more engaging.
She received The Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Travel Award in 1990. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions, most recently at Art Gallery New South Wales, Sydney (2020); Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2020); ICA Milano, Milan (2019); Kochi Biennale, Kochi (2018-2019); Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (2018).
Lubna Chowdhary’s ‘Interstice at 100 Liverpool Street’
Her work is held in many public collections around the world such as Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham; Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; Leicester City Museum, Leicester; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; Mead Gallery, Warwick and Nottingham Castle Museum, Nottingham.
