Writer’s CV reads like a travel retrospective. Wander-lust is what he says takes him across the world for invited residencies, workshops and exhibitions. Adil is an architect with a Master’s degree in architecture from the University of Houston, Texas. He worked in Bombay as an architect before reaching Pondicherry to learn ceramics at the iconic Golden Bridge Pottery. Since 2000, he is a partner at Mandala Pottery in Auroville, an international community tucked away in the forests of south India where he strikes a fine balance between making functional tableware and his own studio ceramics and large-scaled unfired clay paintings.

Writer’s ceramics and large scale paintings have been showcased at several solo and group exhibitions in Japan, China, India, Indonesia, Australia, Estonia, France, Taiwan and USA. Writer has been instrumental in arranging a residency for eighteen Indian ceramists to Fuping for the proposed Museum of Contemporary Indian Ceramics in China.

At Shigaraki, one of the oldest kiln-sites in Japan, Adil culminated his three-month invited residency with a solo show titled “Himitsu Te Uso”. He also featured in, “Six by Six: Interpreting Craft in Gondwana”, a path-breaking collaborative Indo-Australian show at the Australian Triennial in Canberra which was subsequently also shown in Yingge, Taiwan in 2018. This spirit of dialogue led to “In Collaboration” with the celebrated artist Laxma Goud, at Pundole Art Gallery in Mumbai. His curatorial exhibitions include ‘Table Manners’ 1 & 2, ‘Porcelain’ and ‘Clay Off the Wall’. The pandemic years he spent co-curating www.QuartzInversion.com with American artist Janet Adams, a project that has become a mini encyclopedia of pandemic art in the ceramic field.

Writer is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, Geneva.