BIO

Nandini Takhar is a London-based artist working primarily in ceramics, whose practice spans sculpture, installation, and diverse materials including glass, textiles, photography, and paint. After completing her degree in optometry, she experienced a pivotal shift that led her to leave the profession and embark on extensive Jungian analysis and creative discovery, which continues to inform her work.

Her artistic development draws on formal training in art and design, years of immersive studio practice, and hands-on engagement with a variety of materials. For the past five years, she has been developing Metamorphosis, an ambitious mixed-media installation exploring transformation through the metaphor of the butterfly’s life cycle, composed of sculptural works across multiple stages. Still in development, the project holds space for evolving questions around change and renewal.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work begins in the unconscious: dreams, memories, and impulses that resist immediate articulation. Working as a multidisciplinary artist with ceramics as my primary focus, I’m building a visual language that’s rooted in and responsive to the layered, multidimensional nature of life. My ongoing installation project, Metamorphosis, uses the butterfly's life cycle as a central metaphor to investigate themes of life, death, and renewal. Each stage: caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly, comprises sculptures that function both as individual artworks and as elements of a larger narrative.

Alchemy underpins my creative process. Ideas surface unexpectedly during daily life as intuitive connections between disparate elements: dream fragments link to memories, observations, or cultural references, forming chains of association charged with meaning before logic appears. I quickly sketch these fleeting visions before developing them through reflection and research while honouring their original spark. Clay in particular, offers physical engagement that grounds abstract concepts. Each piece evolves through ongoing conversation between initial clarity and elements that emerge during making. My early visions are suggestive rather than fixed, creating space for the work to shift and surprise me while staying anchored to the original impulse.

At the core of this approach is a commitment to following my imagination. For me, the true medium is inner experience; the materials come later. Making art from this place is both personal and political: a refusal to numb out in a culture that encourages disconnection. Shaped by years in Jungian analysis and daily dreamwork, I work in ongoing dialogue with the unconscious. Early works explored personal narrative. As I’ve changed, my practice has expanded to include collective, cultural, and ecological themes. I’m drawn to what becomes possible when we hold the tension between opposites, when we make space for the unknown and allow something deeper to emerge.

I see my works as visual poems: generative prompts that invite openness rather than fixed meaning. They offer space for viewers to bring their own experiences, allowing new thoughts, feelings, and questions to arise. Through this dialogue, I hope to challenge inherited assumptions and spark new perspectives, both individual and collective.

Lately, I've been experimenting with what feels radical: going to the root of my creative process and reimagining how I relate to my intuitive self. I'm developing new frameworks that act as a cultivated garden, spaces where fleeting thoughts, dream images, and intuitions take root, grow, and form unexpected connections. Something internal feels reconfigured through this work: the deepening restoration and unfolding of the imaginative self beneath conditioned patterns. These frameworks counter the powerlessness and nihilism instilled by western rationalism, patriarchy, and mechanised thinking. This feels especially vital in a world navigating crisis. I'm curious to see what might emerge from this deeper cultivation, how it might shape my voice and the work that follows.