MEDITATIVE DESIGNS
AMAN KHANNA, 40 FOUNDER, CLAYMEN, DELHI www.claymen.in
There is a Zen-like calm that dominates both the wares displayed in neat rows and their creator, Aman Khanna, clad in all-black against an almost-white backdrop. Khanna is a graphic artist, illustrator, sculptor and a visual storyteller. He graduated in graphic and information design from London College of Communication in 2004. Things changed when his art installation was accepted for Pictoplasma Academy group show held in Berlin in April 2014. “First I tried working with wood and that was a total disaster. Then, I bought a ball of clay home and made something,” says Khanna, who started Claymen three years ago but registered the company in 2016.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? “Claymen literally means clay and mankind. Each piece is a little bit of self reflection, the idea of human interactions and what I feel when making them,” says Khanna. So, you have two clay heads on a see saw called Inferiority Complex, a sculpture called day dreamer with several heads, each denoting a dream, a bottle called bottled up and hand-moulded series of plates and other objects.
SHOWING RESTRAINT “Some pieces are functional, some sculptural and some both,” adds Khanna. However, be it cups and bowls or art, all of his designs come in muted colour tones. “I started with a transparent glaze and slowly moved to whites, blue-greys and terracotta,” says Khanna. The soft hues bring subtle sophistication to the table.
PRICE `800 to `15,000