Master potter Iskandar Jalil exhibits prized works kept in family collection

SINGAPORE – Master potter Iskandar Jalil’s three-storey terrace home in Jalan Kembangan stands as a visual compendium of the 85-year-old’s aesthetics. His ceramic kitchenware pieces have been in use for decades, wavy twigs of assorted girths are piled up neatly in a crate, even the tree outside has been chopped to beautiful imperfection in his eyes.

Some of his most prized works sit in a rooftop private gallery, six decades of art-making – what he could not sell or bear to sell – concentrated in a single spacious room. About two dozen works from his family collection will be on show at the Singapore Clay Festival, which returns for its fifth edition from Nov 6 to 9.

“When it’s too good, it’s rubbish,” says the Cultural Medallion recipient from his home, which he shares with his wife Saleha Amir.

Observing the pots lined on his table, his verdict is that many of the things he made are ugly – too symmetrical, too perfect. Recalling a tall water container in the Istana Art Collection, he declares that it, too, is ugly – too beautiful.

It seems that the artist, famed for smashing the pots of his students in a pail when they are too perfect or derivative, reserves the same harsh judgment for his own work. He tests this reporter on which of the pots he prefers and goes on to say that Singaporeans need to be educated out of their appreciation for symmetrical things.

These days, he goes out with his walking stick and takes a bus to his studio at Temasek Polytechnic every Tuesday – not necessarily to work, but to hang out with his students Law Shu Na and Latip Hussain. He is no longer as mobile as he was five years ago, when he would ride his motorbike to the studio daily.

But Iskandar surprises even curator Seah Tzi-Yan at this interview when he pulls out a pair of small pots made in 2025 that she has never seen. Titled I Am What I Am, one is in the shape of a deflated pufferfish, the other like a rough acorn – both topped with twigs picked from Lombok.

The exacting potter finally finds praise for his work when he sees these two, which will be on show. The pots bear the marks of imperfection, as he claims he placed the pots in a canal near St Patrick’s School to weather them naturally.

“It’s very hard work to do pottery. You make 10 pots and they are very beautiful, but they are ugly. I look for the unusual ones, the ones made by accident.”

Some of these accidents are quite literal. One of the clay works in his private gallery that will not be on show is of a leg cast glazed in earthy hues, made when he injured his leg.

Tall Vase (1976), which will go on show, is dented along its torso. Close observers will see it is the imprint left by Iskandar’s left arm, an accidental mark he made when he tried to save the pot from flying off the wheel.

There is also Fukushima Revisited (2022), a scene of destroyed houses in the aftermath of the nuclear accident.

Japan has a special place in his heart, as he received a Colombo Plan scholarship to study ceramics engineering in Tajimi city in Gifu prefecture in 1972. He was subsequently bestowed the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette by the Emperor of Japan in 2015.

On show are also works of personal meaning – a pair of undated pots named after his children Edzra and Elena, as well as an exquisitely hefty four-piece Satay Set (circa 1990s) made of stoneware and wood.

He says he made an identical set that is now with the family of the late Joseph McNally, founder of the Lasalle College of the Arts.

Asked what the proudest achievement of his career is, the master potter sweeps the question aside. “My life is useless. The interesting ones are my students, they are the ones who still create.”

He counts among them the potters Suriani Suratman, Hiroko Mita and Leng Soh – who will all be exhibiting work at the festival.

“These are the people who persevere and accept ugly pieces as beautiful,” he says. “These are the people who will carry on the tradition and who know what my story is.”

Book It/Singapore Clay Festival

Where: Multipurpose Hall, Level 7 Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, 1 Straits Boulevard
When: Nov 6, by invitation only; Nov 7 to 8, 11am to 9pm; Nov 9, 11am to 6pm
Admission: $10 for a one-day pass, $18 for a season pass; $32 for two season passes
Info:

singaporeclayfest.com