Vineet Kacker

My work draws from the landscape, art and iconography of the Himalayas; from built form that references the sacred, as well as from a personal engagement with Eastern spiritual thought.

Intuitively the works respond to the Himalayan landscape, drawing on a certain sense of self experienced when walking through the mountains and encountering something ancient, mystical, magical and timeless. While the time-worn textures and iconographic markings on the surfaces may appear to reference established traditions, through my working process the text, icons and imagery are remixed and re-contextualized into new works that are symbolic without being derivative, accessible yet also contemplative. The work walks a line between the meditative and the playful, questioning perceived boundaries between Spirit and Matter. Often they are inspired by the phenomenon of street shrines for all over the Indian subcontinent, where associations of faith – often contested – have the ability to transform the meaning of ordinary objects.

— Vineet Kacker

After graduating as an architect in 1989, Vineet Kacker was introduced to ceramics at the Andretta Pottery, Himachal. He went on to study at the Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry, at which time he also assisted Ray Meeker on his experimental Fired-Earth housing projects. Vineet has done artist-in-residence programs at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado, and the Northern Clay Center, Minnesota, U.S.A, as well as a post-experience program at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, U.K. He has apprenticed with well-known British ceramists Alan Caiger-Smith and Sandy Brown. He is the recipient of the Charles Wallace Fellowship and the Fulbright grant. He is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, Geneva. His work has been widely exhibited, and is a part of several collections – notably the Museum of Contemporary Ceramics at Icheon, Korea; the Indian Ceramics Museum at FULE, Fuping, China, the Mark Rokhko Art Center, Latvia and the Ariana Museum, Switzerland – and has been published in several international journals. Vineet Kacker works from his studio in Gurgaon, India.