Sarban Chowdhury

Sarban Chowdhury

1992

Overview

Working fluidly across ceramic sculpture and painting,
Sarban Chowdhury develops a tactile, image-laden practice that navigates the intersections of autobiography, social commentary, and material poetics.
Grounded in a profound understanding of the sculptural process, Chowdhury’s work interrogates the contradictions and curiosities of contemporary
life—drawing on a spectrum of human experience that encompasses vulnerability, alienation, decay, and desire.

Graduating from the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata with a specialization in Ceramic Art and Pottery, Chowdhury’s practice pushes the technical and conceptual boundaries of ceramics. His forms are often punctuated with textual interventions and satirical gestures, constructing a visual language that is simultaneously visceral and contemplative. He mines the intimate and the everyday, translating moments of absurdity, beauty, and existential unease into layered compositions that read as both personal artefacts and social critique. 

His recent solo and group exhibitions include The Toothless Times (APRE Art House, Mumbai, 2024); Measuring Life with Coffee Spoons (APRE Art House, 2023); and Singing the Body Electric, curated by Kristine Michael (APRE Art House, 2022). Chowdhury was selected among the top ten emerging artists by MASH India, supported by KHOJ (2022), and undertook a residency at the Taoxichuan International Ceramic Studio in Jingdezhen, China.

He is a member of Artaxis (USA) and the Centre of Contemporary Artists (COCA), Rome, and has received multiple awards, including the Artdemic Award (Gujral Foundation, New Delhi); Honourable Mention by Art for Change Foundation (New Delhi); support from the Prafulla Dahanukar Art Foundation; Lalit Kala Akademi Travel Grant (2017); and the Prince Claus Fund Grant (Amsterdam). He has led workshops for youth through TARA and Artreach India, and has held visiting artist positions at Pathways School, Gurgaon and Woodstock School, Mussoorie.

Chowdhury’s oeuvre speaks to a stream-of-consciousness sensibility- where form and metaphor coalesce in works that hold contradiction as a site of inquiry, embracing ambiguity, humour, and the fragility of being with equal measure.