Desmond Gabriel Pravin (b. 1997, Singapore) is a contemporary artist working primarily in ceramics and sculptural media. A graduate of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Ceramics), Desmond employs clay, wood, and Styrofoam to create tactile, process-driven installations that explore memory, spiritual transformation, and material impermanence through the embodied lens of a queer Indian Singaporean.

Central to his practice is Ash & Clay — an evolving ceramic philosophy interrogating cycles of creation, destruction, and renewal through elemental processes. This work is deeply informed by syncretic cosmologies: drawing on Hindu concepts of pralaya (cosmic dissolution), Christian narratives of resurrection, and Tamil material rituals. These inherited frameworks converge with his queer identity, transforming the kiln into a site of metaphysical alchemy where traditional symbols are reshaped to articulate marginalised stories of becoming.

Pravin’s installations embody the tension between cultural heritage and personal reinvention. Weaving his own experiences as a Tamil-Indian queer individual into the work, he engages themes of resilience against erasure and the complex ethics of visibility. Through material metamorphosis, he invites reflection on the sacredness of survival and the politics of being seen.