Rhea Malhotra

Sculpture, Wheel, and Mixed Media Form
Contact rheamal@stanford.edu

Hand Form

Carving and reduction techniques were initially utilized to construct the hand form. Based on live hand models with construction to real scale.

Small Hand Figurine:

Installations

The series above was my major installation carrying the underlying theme of tessellations. The framed hanging pieces were created through a developed slip drizzle technique in plaster molds & compilation of the shattered pieces onto wooden frames. The flower & fish tessellation pieces similarly used a theme in form with different colors mounted on warped tile to add to this installation.

Through slab building and both manual and press print indentation, this form was created with a spotted interior. A cut was created such that the complex patterning inside could be seen, and the petal like opening would be wider for a more prominent form.

Before bisque firing, the piece was sanded. Drip like cuts extended the leaf-like petals protruding from the top of the piece and wrapped this motion around the body fo the figure. The exterior linear carvings served to contrast the darker and rounded pattern inside.

Dark brown & Albany glaze coated the interior and was pipetted into the crevices to pronounce the form. The outside was also coated with homemade clear glaze, which created the intricate mix patterns at the end of the linear carvings.

Given the positive spotted patterns, the glaze left the upper portion of each given spot lighter than the rest of the interior, allowing the design to be visualized despite the dark choice of color.

Leafed Arches

The individual leaf components were first cut from slab pieces, rolled with an imprint through the slab roller and dried in plaster molds to harden in a fixed position and ensure curvature.

Once leather-hard, the leaf pieces were lined up based on size and arranged such that the smallest pieces were on the ends, building up to the largest in the middle. This was originally scratch & slipped and later secured upon glazing with glue. The figure was angled to represent a winged bird, and can be mounted on a wall or perpendicular surface to be displayed.

Sharpened Ellipse Form

Mitch Lyon's Piece

This form was created through the technique developed by artist, Mitch Lyons, through a twist on slab-based construction through double-rolling.

Along with the nuances building technique, the exterior coloring was done with embedded colored glazes and black drip slip in indented crevices. The interior was coated in a terra cotta hued orange to give the piece an abstract yet natural and raw tone.

Floral Form

Drip glazing was used both on the interior and exterior and once complete, the whole figure was mounted on darker foam cork tile for contrast.

Wings - Wall Mount

Initially conceptualized from layered paper cutouts and impressed with natural leaves & sticks which burned off in the kiln.

The reverse side has saturation gold scratches deep within the outer matte black surface. The entire piece is 2 distinct wing-like solids layered on top of one-another and mounted on a shingle from the side of Snyder House, the oldest building on the Moravian Academy campus.

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