Trend predicted by Mrudul Pathak Kundu
Produced by Sehaj Sekhon
We’ve often been sold the fantasy of flawless. Objects sans fingerprints, cuts or edges. Marquetry says otherwise. Beautifully complex, the technique dismisses mass production in favour of hand-cut slivers of wood pieced together into a single artwork! Dipped into timber’s many hues and swirling motions, these mosaics only trust one recipe: some grain, some texture and timber’s natural colours.
CHIPPIWARA STUDIO
Can wood mirror the dreamy wash of watercolour? The two marquetry works by ChippiWara Studio’s Tanveen Ratti attempt an answer. A lone cyclist, colourful meadows and the sky stitched on one console’s canvas with artisan K Srinivasa, and the Ramganga River winding down through Corbett’s forests on a door panel in collaboration with Mohan Handicrafts (created for Studio Nishita Kamdar). Both rely on the grain of wood and its natural colour to mimic the paintbrush strokes, chipping together a colourful scenery derived not from a palette, but timber itself.
(created for Studio Nishita Kamdar)
PHANTOM HANDS
Can shadows be carved, more so with pieces of veneer? The wall cabinet’s surface reveals a three-dimensional illusion that perhaps only marquetry can conjure. Born out of experiments in wood inlay with Phantom Hands and Mysore’s artisans, the multifunctional cabinet created by x+l duo Xander Vervoort and Leon van Boxtel wears hand-cut veneers as architectural depth. Of the two patterns — Split Level Rooms and Tower of Shadows — the latter is inspired by Le Corbusier’s 1952 structure in Chandigarh.
FURGONOMICS BY UNTITLED
Dense, intense, layered and monumental; like Mumbai’s jigsawesque plat, this tall unit is built from countless parts of wood assembled as a single map of the city. At every glance, there’s something new to spot. Grain, tone and texture take to the canvas instead of paint and brush, composing a panoramic portrait of scale and movement, perched decisively on sculptural burnt wood legs with rounded veneer panels.
CHACKO SHOP
Three endangered species from the Indian subcontinent find an unlikely home on a tabernacle’s door. Precisely hand-cut veneers are coaxed into feathers, foliage and fleeting borders of wilderness, translating fine artist Gaia’s series into curious compositions of wood in collaboration with Sampigé & Co. Wrapped with an illuminated jaali-like contour, the wallmounted grotto by Chacko Shop‘s Vipin Joe appears much like an object of wonder as it does as a storage.
THE FEATURES
When veneers begin to morph into a landscape, it isn’t sorcery or a coincidence! A mural-like marquetry wall at this home, designed by Kiran Gala & Associates with veneer by Plan My Interior, paints a poetic rendition of a bucolic terrain strung by birds, trees, branches and autumnal leaves.
