Past

2017
“Silver and Gold”, Waverly Street Gallery, Bethesda MD. December 8, 2017 – January 6, 2018 www.waverlystreetgallery.com

  

“Holiday Art Show”, Popcorn Gallery, Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Blvd. Glen Echo, MD 20812. Nov 24, 2017 – Jan 7, 2018. 301-634-2222 www.glenechopark.org

Glen Echo Potters 30th Annual Pottery Sale                                      December 1 -December 3, 2017                                                                         at
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, MT. VERNON CAMPUS – WEST HALL   Washington DC

    

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER

Washington Printmakers Invitational: We the Immigrants                                        September 28 – October 29                                                                                                                1641 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington DC 20007                                                                Kanika Sircar’s Rg Veda wall tiles playfully juxtapose hymns of the invaders of Northern India with maps of Mars, the cosmic imaginings of bards two millennia (or more) ago, as they sat around a fire, drank their version of mead, and looked upward.

“Being Sentient/Sentient Being” September 9 – 30                                                                Juror Aneta Georgievska-Shine                                                                                              Allegany Arts Council, Wills Creek Exhibition                                                                                 9 Center St. Cumberland MD 21502

 Pair of Ratri Sukta porcelain tile books, printed paper versos

Thoughts about linguistic and scientific relativism guide the imagery in most of my work. Schiaparelli’s drawings of Mars and the Vedic hymns in the two Ratri Sukta books present a playful, amalgamated cosmos that the ancient invaders of India may have imagined two millennia ago as they looked at the night skies of the Gangetic plain.

SUMMER

Montgomery Potters Exhibition. July 7 – September 2, 2017. Sandy Spring Museum, Sandy Spring MD 20860. Disappearing Narrative: pair of stoneware wall tiles; Subtext: Trio of stoneware wall tiles. Juror: Lisa York. www.sandyspringmuseum.org/exhibits

 Subtext wall tiles

Washington Printmakers National Small Works Exhibition. August 3 -27, 2017. 1641 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Washington DC 20007. Bradbury: accordion tile book; recto, slip and print on tile, verso, printed rag papers. Award: Honorable Mention. Juror: Scott Hutchison www.washingtonprintmakers.com

Creative Crafts Council 2017 Biennial Prizewinners, The Popcorn Gallery, Glen Echo, MD. August 4 -27, 2017. Glen Echo MD 20812. StarChart: stoneware vessel.  Curator: Jaimianne Amicucci.

 StarChartC

Cartography. August 4 – 27, 2017. The Gray Gallery, 43 S. Cameron St. Winchester VA. Mandala: stoneware vessel; Ratri Sukta : porcelain wall tiles (4); StarChart Flasks 1 – 4, stoneware vessels. www.the-gray-gallery.com/

 StarChart Flask 1

SPRING

Gateway Arts Center, Invited Front Window Featured Artist, May through July, 2017. 3901 Rhode Island Ave. Brentwood MD 20722. Curator: John Thomas Paradiso Exploration Box

Creative Crafts Council 2017 Biennial Exhibition. April 8 – May 21, 2017. Strathmore Mansion, Bethesda MD 20852. StarChart 1, 3, & 4.  Award: First Prize in Ceramics.  Jurors: Maurine Littleton, Rebecca Stevens, Matthew Hyleck. www.creativecraftscouncil.org

 StarChart3

March 26,  2017: Presentation on the inspiration and use of poetry in my ceramic work. Waverly Street Gallery, Bethesda MD 20814. www.waverlystreetgallery.com

 Basho Box

Work on view at the Renwick Gallery Shop, 1700 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington DC 20006: Galileo Flasks

2016

MapQuest: new work in clay
November 8 – December 3, 2016
Waverly Street Gallery, Bethesda MD http://www.waverlystreetgallery.com                                                                                             Vessels, wall tiles, tile books with paper versos. See MapQuest page of this website.

Inaugural Exhibition of District Clay http://www.districtclaycenter.com                  November 19, 2016 – January 15, 2017.

 Barthes Box

Winter 2016 Stone Tower and Popcorn Galleries, Glen Echo Park, MD, November 19 – January 15: wall tiles, boxes, jars; http://www.glenechopark.org/holiday-art-show-2016;  Glen Echo Potters Annual sale GWU Mt. Vernon Campus,  December 2 -December 4, http://www.glenechopottery.com/-events.html: plates, platters, and a lidded container or two; Waverly Street Gallery Members Show, http://www.waverlystreetgallery.com, December 3, 2016 – January 6, 2017

 Summer Garden wall tile

 Sufi Whispers

 Server with a waiting bird

Borders. The piece below is an example of a series referring to the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. It was shown at the 24th Strictly Functional Pottery National (www.strictlyfunctionalpottery.net).

 For other images of the Borders series see the MapQuest page

 

2015

Exploration Vessels

Isobars, ocean currents, unreliable maps and spiny Australian plants on the surface of these pieces, interspersed with fragments from the diaries of Captain Cook or the thoughts of Captain Ahab, refer to the fervor and dread with which we sail into the unknown. Objectively perceived terrain or boundaries are also sketches of emotion and aspiration, “unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure”.

On view at the Renwick Gallery shop, 1700 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20006.

Creative Crafts Council 2015 Award Winners Exhibition  October 2015-May 2016

 This piece received a Ceramic Society of DC award. It is one of a series of  Poetry Boxes/Brainwaves. I think of spinning Sufis, the alpha brainwaves leading to the poems, and the graphic imagery on the boxes evoking those of carpets and tiles.This is Rumi’s poem printed onto the surface:

Dance, when you’re broken open.                                                                                            Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.                                                                                     Dance in the middle of the fighting.                                                                                         Dance in your blood.                                                                                                                          Dance when you’re perfectly free . . . .

Neruda Plates.

Some of these were in the 23rd Strictly Functional Pottery National 2015 exhibit. I feel that dishes for food might remind those who can eat of those who can’t. So these plates have excerpts from Pablo Neruda’s “The Great Tablecloth”; for example:

Eating alone is a disappointment,

but not eating matters more,

is hollow and green, has thorns

like a child of fish-hooks 

trailing from the heart,

clawing at your insides.

 

Sailing Vessels
Some of these pieces will be in the Shippensburg University Ceramics Invitational Exhibition at the Kauffman Gallery. Exhibition dates: January 25, 2016 – February 19, 2016. Reception: Wednesday, January 27, 6.30 – 8.30 pm. Address: 1871 Old Main Drive, Shippensburg PA 17257. Curator: Michael Campbell.

Creative Crafts Council on Tour Popcorn Gallery, 7300 MacArthur Blvd, Glen Echo MD 29812 January 16 – February 21, 2016 Saturdays & Sundays 12 – 6 pm Info@glenechopark.org; creativecraftscouncil.org; 301-634-2222 Reception: Friday, January 29, 6 – 8 pm

2015
Creative Crafts Council Biennial, Strathmore Mansion, Rockville, MD,  June 6- July 26, 2015. Winner: Ceramic Guild of Washington DC Award http://www.creativecraftscouncil.org/2015-exhibition.html

GUILFORD ART CENTER, GUILFORD CT Teapots, Vessels, Flagons & Flasks, May 15 – July 20, 2015, juror Hayne Bayless. Three flasks

Strictly Functional Pottery National, Lancaster PA, Sept 26 – Oct 3, 2015,  juror Matt Long http://www.strictlyfunctionalpottery.net. Two Neruda Plates.

Winter 2014                                                                                                                                        The James Renwick Alliance Day
http://www.jraday.com/JRA_Day_Home.html

The Glen Echo Potters Holiday Show
Dec 6-Dec 7.
Lab School of Washington DC
4759 Reservoir Rd NW, Washington, DC 20007                                                                        Fall 2014 Shows                                                                                                                                    The Gray Gallery, Winchester VA

The Stone Tower and Popcorn Galleries
Nov 28-Jan 11
7300 Macarthur Blvd.
Glen Echo Park, MD 20812 http://www.glenechopark.org/holiday-art-show-2014

Gray Gallery, Winchester Va, September 2014. Inaugural Exhibition.

Strictly Functional Pottery National 2014,  Lancaster PA (http://www.strictlyfunctionalpottery.net/)

“From the Ground Up”, the Zanesville Prize for Contemporary Ceramics 2014 in Zanesville OH (http://zanesvilleprize.org/)

Fall 2013
KANIKA SIRCAR
Text/Message
Ceramic Vessels and Wall Pieces
September 10 – October 5, 2013
at
WAVERLY STREET GALLERY
4600 East-West Highway
Bethesda, MD 20814
(301) 951-9441
http://www.waverlystreetgallery.com
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12 – 6PM
Nice show, lots of visitors, coverage, and publicity. Despite an opening that coincided with Yom Kippur and a closing week that coincided with the shutdown of the federal government, it was an exhibition that was beautiful, cohesive and seen by a large public.

Check out my Spine piece at the pop-up show
at Patton Boggs, 2550 M St. NW, Washington DC 20037
Monday, November 4 – Friday, November 8, 2013
installed courtesy of http://www.adahrosegallery.com

May 4, 2013 – June 13, 2013: “Unscripted Boxes”, The Creative Crafts Council 29th Biennial Exhibition at The Mansion at Strathmore, 10701 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD.

March 28 – May 30, 2012: “Persian Poetry Boxes”, Sandy Spring Museum, Sandy Spring, MD.

2011 “Radiation Jars”, Lorton Workhouse Clay National, Confinement, Lorton, VA

2011 “River Vessel”, Strictly Functional Pottery National, Lancaster, PA