Chudamani Clowes

My work  is inspired by a childhood memory of playing with an elephant skull. I managed to link this memory with the Empire shows that took place last century when elephant  troops were bought over from Ceylon, all the way to London to perform in front of an audience. I am  interested in post-colonial discourse, in particular addressing the use of the ethnographic archive at the British Museum in contemporary art today. I use relief printing, etching and ceramics to create images and sculptures of fictional characters who are inspired by Victorian paintings. I  am inspired by Victorian paintings like 'The Last of England' by Ford Maddox Brown. I have remodelled the one hundred characters from the painting by William Frith ' The Day at the Races'. I am  interested in how the non-European has been shown in museums. I am reinterpreting  the artefacts  from my own family's colonial past. I am using the medium of print and ceramics to create my own narrative of what may have happened in the past. As a post-colonial subject, I am reclaiming objects from my family history to carry out a translation. I am creating my own historical past dealing with issues of immigration and race encountered today.