Dressing up living and commercial spaces has assumed importance in today’s urban life. Walls or ceilings are no longer dumb. People desire them to reflect the persona of their inhabitants. Institutions want their facades, corridors, waiting areas to convey their aims, objectives, past, spirit and the activity within the four walls. Metro cities in India seek the services of a host of designers, artists, visualisers and décor experts to embellish their interiors as well as exteriors.
A good number of art studios today provide services to enliven the spaces in homes, industries, institutions and commercial firms. They absorb budding artists from the schools of art and designs. While the aim may be to enhance the visual appeal of the edifices and the ambience, artists endow them with traits the corporates or their inmates cherish for a lifetime.
The décor need not necessarily be a collage or a mélange of paints and colours. It may be metalwork, accessories like art pieces created out of pottery — clay or glazed porcelain — or customised installations; geometric shapes in walls or art sculptures; even be a Buddha frieze or colourful pieces of glass joined together to create an artistic relief. In corporate offices or institutions, the art work may be used to emphasise the brand or the company’s aims, logo or the milestones in the journey to the present. Help is also sought from elements of illumination, paints, potted plants or wall hangings. Fixtures of crystal or glass can romanticise the ambience. Use of brasswork or wrought iron can further accentuate the feeling.
A number of design firms and artwork studios have joined the already established interior decorators to lend meaning to modern offices, homes and institutions in centres of urban growth today. Design studio ‘Earthen Symphony’ was set up by Madhu Chandrika in Bengaluru in 1995. Today she employs a battery of artists and has designed some landmark offices and corporate headquarters.
Says Chandrika, clients opt for evocative artistic renditions to add memory to space and as a ‘WOW factor’. Her works include the office building of Adcock Ingram Pharmaceuticals, United Technologies Company (both in Bengaluru), Indian School of Business in Mohali and E-Hotel in Chennai.
Silk thread displayAn artwork, all of 12 ft. x 12ft. mural at Adcock Ingram building, involved 98,000 metres of silk thread to display the confluence of the flags of India and South Africa (Adcock is a South African firm) with the logo of the company placed at the centre. The company wanted the relations between the two countries emphasised through the design. Yet another artwork in the building focused on the theme of ‘Celebration of life’ brought about through a jigsaw puzzle of tiles depicting a variety of elements.
If the colours were vibrant for Adcock Ingram, the ones used for the L&T showcase outside its building in Mysuru, carried heavy equipment in sepia tone, redolent of the company’s historic standing in the construction industry.
When it comes to brightness, transparency and dazzling illumination, glass has no peers. Glass adds a quaint touch to the interiors. It has the unique character of enlarging visual space too. Moiz Arsiwala, a glass sculptor trained under Czech glass sculptor Vladimir Klein, has specialised in using coral-shaped art pieces for wall arts. Shades and chandeliers created by him appear like multicolour jellyfish floating over water. Says Shabbir Arsiwala of Isra Glass, the days of sighing over stained glass windows of historic buildings in Venice or Brussels are over. ‘
Vetropole’ bubbled glass pillars that transfer light from outside without compromising on privacy of the interiors are here, he adds. According to Moiz, glass pillars, partition walls or even staircases can jazz up any gloomy corner of a building. They are used for mere partitions, not for load bearing construction. However, Vetropole glass pillars are used for staircase purposes. A 70 mm diameter and 8 ft. high glass column weighs around 35 kg. Glass rods serve as banister columns.
Metalwork for artArtistick’s is an art firm set up by a team of graduates from Government College of Arts & Crafts, Chennai, in 1989. Today it has galleries at Coimbatore, Madurai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Vizag, Pune and Vijayawada besides its main studio sprawling over 22,000 sq. ft. in Chennai. It employs nearly 500 people. Artistick’s has specialised in metalwork art.
G.N. Karthik Kumar, business manager from Artistick’s, says the firm created the bewitching 50 ft.-high metalwork for the Sriram Gateway in Chennai and the social networking firm Linkedin’s office in Bengaluru. Working exclusively with brass, copper and white metal, Artistick’s has developed a wide range of accessories for gates, doors, banisters, pillars, railings, etc., to suit all needs. Artistick’s provides its services to almost all major architectural firms across the country.
Fibre-reinforced plasticWhen it comes to the medium, even fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) has joined the fray of materials that go into the decorative arts. Beside wall cladding or picket fencing, the material is now used even for partition jalis, louvers and shading material over pergolas.
Marketing executive for Fiberr Xel, K.R. Manjunath, says FRP carries elegant mahogany timber finish and has come to be widely used for gates, wall cladding and garden benches as it is totally water resistant.
