An Interview with Artist Anousha Payne
London-based artist Anousha Payne’s work explores the human pursuit of spirituality in object form, as a mode of cultural expression that is distinct from religious symbolism. Through the process of psychic automatism and free-association, she is interested in the possibilities of imbuing spirituality into an object and in the material qualities of religious or spiritual objects and spaces.
Anousha graduated from Camberwell College of Arts with a BFA in 2014. Mainly working with sculpture and painting, her preferred materials are ceramics, textile, plaster, epoxy and watercolour.
In this interview, Anousha talks to Krittika about her interest in Tamil folklore, the inspiration behind her incredibly textured ceramics and her solo exhibition ‘and here she dwells’ at indigo+madder (25 July- 1 August)
Anousha in front of her work Shall I show you my real face? which was a part of and here she dwells at indigo+madder. Photography by Matthew Coles.
What inspired you to get into sculpture?
I initially became interested in painting and drawing because I saw a still life painting that my dad made aged 15, hanging in my grandmother’s house. I remember thinking that I wanted to be able to paint like that. I used to have drawing competitions with my dad when I was younger, we would sketch portraits of people in magazines, then compare them. But eventually I began to find drawing and painting quite limiting, I started to see things in 3 dimensions and taking up physical space. There are often things that can be difficult to articulate directly just through words, and I felt compelled to make objects with materials that have a kind of visually seductive quality; shiny, glossy, feminine, tactile.
Anousha’s studio in London with works in progress
How was the transition from art school to setting up your studio practice?
I moved into a studio immediately after leaving art school, and have never not had a studio, but I found the transition difficult, suddenly having no workshops and tools, you have to start from scratch and realise how much you took all the equipment and guidance for granted. I haven’t done an MA, so it took a very long time to start exhibiting and to have a clear identity and drive within my work. One of the things that’s toughest is that in order to survive and pay rent you have to work in other jobs almost all the time, it takes a while to find that balance, to be able to give yourself the time you need in the studio in order for your practice to develop, and for the balance to tip in your favour, until you can start living off your practice.
How was the initial lockdown period for you? Was it productive? I know we started planning your solo show and here she dwells well before everything went into lockdown, but there was a time when not much was allowed!
I feel very lucky to be able to say this, but the beginning of the lockdown was quite blissful. Being forced to stop rushing and working and running around all the time, to stop being sociable... I spent the first couple of weeks just reading in the garden and cooking, using the time to research for my work. This slowing down really allowed a shift in perspective, and clarity of mind. I have always read a lot but had never allowed literature and stories to have a direct impact on my work. This time to slow down allowed me to process what I was reading properly, to slowly make new works with the show with you as the end point in mind. I also started thinking about cooking as a way of reconnecting with cultural heritage, using my grandmothers ancient pan to make egg hoppers, and then using her muruku press to press clay through (to make ‘hair’ for Shall I show you my real face). Further into the lockdown as the deadline for the show approached things got a bit hectic, I found myself not working within my normal working hours (I generally like to go to the studio just in the daytime like a normal job), and there were some covid related delays that pushed things right until the last minute (eg. the glass! the washers which I’d drawn but had cnc cut in steel). It was quite anxiety inducing not having a few days to spare in the end but as you know it all arrived literally just in time.
Installation views, and here she dwells at indigo+madder, 25 June – 1 August
Yes, it was an exciting, nail biting install!
In recent work, you have also used Tamil folklore as a way of connecting with your cultural heritage and identity. How did this exploration come about, specifically your engagement with myth and folklore?
In the past year or so I began to think about my cultural identity; questioning my relationship with my own heritage why I hadn’t addressed it earlier, why I might have been uncomfortable with it. Although my mother used to play us Hanuman tales on tape when we were younger, this particular focus on Tamil folklore began with my boyfriend buying me a book of Indian folkloric stories, and I focused specifically on Tamil stories as my family are Tamil. I have always been interested in storytelling, but usually focus on short stories and modern literature. I began to connect more with mythology and folklore as there are often fictional magical creatures within mythology, and I’m interested in this combination of moral dilemmas and magic; spirituality and animism alongside characters with transformative qualities. A lot of these stories carry so much history with them; they’ve been passed down from generation to generation, all word of mouth and personal adaptations and flourishes that change the stories over time. I think this tells you more about communities and particular groups within society, and about human communication and the importance of storytelling, about belief systems and caste systems and morality over time. All of these things are condensed into these short and often transportive stories, sometimes sad and often witty and comical. The stories are so visually driven too, so tangible but also quite dramatised.
As she plucks, 2020, glazed ceramic stoneware, 17 x 25 x 4 cm
In some pieces and older works, you reference hand gestures from South Asian classical dance and spiritual traditions. You once mentioned learning when you were young. Does that stem from your own classical dance background?
I wouldn’t say I exactly have a classical dance background, I briefly took lessons in Bharatanatyam, but I don’t have natural sense of rhythm and I was mainly interested in the idlys (South Indian breakfast food) we would have for breakfast after the dance class. Bharatanatyam requires a lot of studying and skill, your hands must be extremely flexible; it’s a very precise dance. What I enjoy about it though is the gestures have a real narrative, some literal and some metaphorical. Many of these hand gestures are used in yogic practices too. Historically, Bharatanatyam began as a Hindu temple dance, so is intrinsically and historically linked to spirituality but is not considered exclusively religious anymore (it became a popular dance for entertainment centuries ago) I am interested generally in the concept of a story being told simply through hand gestures, how much we communicate through body language and the movement of our bodies, mouth, hands.
Slippery Skin II, 2020, glazed ceramic stoneware, 33 x 20 x 9 cm
The reptilian surfaces of your ceramics are incredible. Some of them are quite smooth and others have a strong, scaly tactile quality. What drew you to these textures?
I am drawn to reptile skin as a texture as it has so many associations - something ancient and natural, almost divine in its beauty, and something that we have come to associate with handbags, fast fashion... and yet it’s somehow also grotesque. I am interested in making these kinds of hybrid objects, animal/reptilian and human, reaching into an action or movement, as though alive, as I think it allows us to get closer to the idea of animism, to give value and spiritual significance to inanimate objects. I think as a society we have started to become inundated with mass produced objects, and the objects we surround ourselves by and own, have started to lose value, fast fashion is really impacting the way we digest and use clothing.
It’s really interesting how you are alluding to motion and metamorphosis by moulding the surfaces the way you do, mimicking the nature of reptile skin, which are slippery when the creature moves forward.
It’s a contrast, as the clay, which goes through such deliberate glazing and firing processes, that yield a hard-rigid but fragile surface, is moulded in such a way that it appears flowing, ephemeral and pliant!
This is something I definitely strive to achieve with my work, the feeling of movement and slipperiness and glossiness within a static object, as though it’s on the verge of reaching into a movement.
When we were initially discussing the show, we spoke a lot about domestic objects and spiritual, non-religious spaces that lie somewhere between reality and myth. A space of safety, rest and the transformation! Coincidently, domestic spaces, and what they offer in terms of safety (or lack thereof) have also been on everyone’s mind during lockdown. Can you discuss whether lockdown changed or developed these ideas in any way?
I think a lot of the ideas for the show only really came about because of lockdown. There was kind of a sense of escapism in the female characters I was creating, a freedom in imagining these characters that exist in a fictional space, but that live in the jungle or in the river in the folkloric tales they originate from. I also think the lockdown really made me consider the significance of the spaces we surround ourselves by, the material qualities and colours of the spaces we dwell in. I wanted to paint the space to create a hospitable and comforting colour, for it to be welcoming rather than hostile, and wanted the central table to be reminiscent of a coffee table so it felt like a domestic space rather than a gallery.
Shall I show you my real face? 2020, glazed stoneware ceramic, 164 x 90 cm
The sculpture ‘Shall I show you my real face?’ composed of highly textured ceramic tiles, comes together like a puzzle, each piece slotted into dagger-like metal hardware. Can you talk about what made you think of this work, its production and install?
This sculpture was made in response to a Tamil folkloric story of the same name. The story is about a woman who gets married off to a tiger disguised as a man. As they set off on their journey, the man reveals his true form as a tiger, and becomes increasingly aggressive and unpleasant. I won’t tell the entire story, but it ends with the woman being saved by her brothers and her family, but I wanted to reimagine the story so it ends with the woman saving herself; she transforms herself into a tiger, the metal daggers emerge from her stripes as her weapons; she can defend herself. The texture of the sculpture is intended to bring a bit of peacefulness to the object (like a silent protest rather than actually violent, a warning rather than a fight), I was thinking about tiger patterned rugs, and animal print objects around the house. I wanted the sculpture to have a textile rug or woven-like texture so that it was reminiscent of the use of animal print as a decorative tool within interiors and of Tibetan prayer rugs.
Copal casts of Anousha’s grandmother’s jewellery placed on top of the sculpture Your heart tastes like apples (the crocodile’s wife), 2020, glass, jesmonite, ceramic, plywood, 106.5 x 154 cm
There is also an exploration of themes of memory and loss. You have recreated a piece of your grandmother’s jewellery in the show. Can you talk about that a bit more? Amazing how in many parts of South Asia, people feel strong ancestral ties to gold jewellery especially as heirlooms carrying emotional value.
On the table are some casts of my grandmother’s pendant. The casts are made in copal, which is a Mexican tree resin, traditionally used in Day of the Dead ceremonies to remember those passed. I wanted them to be reminiscent of fossils, a moment in time - though if you were to burn them, they’d release a strong heady sweet scent as copal is used as an incense. These casts were intended as an offering, and were to be taken away for free. The reason behind this is that last year my mother’s house was broken into, and all of her jewellery and my grandmother’s jewellery was stolen. As you mentioned, this was particularly hurtful as jewellery plays a large role in South Asian communities and is passed down through generations, it has emotional and sentimental value.
I wanted to offer the casts for free, as a positive sentiment against the bad that had happened - and throughout the lockdown I became interested in objects having symbolic meaning - whether occurrences or experiences of certain objects could impact the outcome of your day, or your life. I wrote a short story about this (‘A regret’), questioning the use of objects having symbolic power, and questioning karma.
Growing between her fingertips as the moon slowly rises, 2020, watercolour on cotton, 230 x 180 cm
Can you talk a bit more about your paintings? Those serpentine forms and your medium of choice (watercolour on cotton)?
The paintings in the show are a kind of meditation on the idea of animism. Through these kinds of blown up doodles, sketches and free association drawings, I wanted to see whether the imagery can carry the feelings put into them, of calmness, of meditation. I am also interested in psychic automatism, to see whether it’s possible that ideas can come out within the imagery without directly dictating the outcome. Though there are particular parts of the paintings that are a bit more directed. For example, in the larger painting (Growing between her fingertips as the moon slowly rises) there’s a reference to the moon rising, which is symbolised by the Bharatanatyam gesture signifying the face of the moon. The serpentine forms are proposed as a symbol of female power and creativity…I’m interested in the serpent as a symbolic image as it has such contrasting meanings - in Christianity it’s a sign of evil or darkness, whereas in many other spiritual beliefs it holds positive and female energy.
All images courtesy Anousha Payne and indigo+madder, London. © indigo+madder, London