It is an urban challenge, filling up your rather restricted home spaces with the quirks of your own personality. Artist Manisha Gawade sensed this tacit need to glamourise interiors by adding a spot of colour and a lick of paint to otherwise lacklustre pieces of furniture to get your home to speak volumes about your persona.
“The boring shades of brown have always irked me,” confesses Manisha. “As an artist, I felt tempted by the large blank canvas available in furniture. It beckoned me eagerly. That is how I began drawing unconventional designs on paper, making pencil sketches and digitally creating them through 2D and 3D versions. Only when I was satisfied that they would work in terms of functionality, did I venture into the physical process of creating them,” she elaborates on the inception of her journey. Though, as she confesses, working on wood as a medium is at least 10 times more difficult compared to working with canvas.
So, the 4 ft x 2 ft chest of drawers for storing your vanity essentials spices up the storage sweepstakes by arriving in the shape of a woman’s cocktail dress. Dubbed Pretty Scarlet, it was inspired by Manisha’s painting, Sunset Yellows. “It was a challenge to create and then paint as it involved plenty of drip lines on it in acrylic inks. The sheer physicality of moving the entire weight and volume of this piece of furniture at the correct angles to create the long drip lines was quite a feat,” laughs Manisha.
There is a sizeable quantum of research that goes into the making of every piece of furniture, to explore the strength, durability and functionality of every creation as a worthwhile investment for the end buyer. Of course, this has involved a good amount of experimentation with polish and finish to ensure that the furniture actually lasts a lifetime.
Shilpi Madan for New Indian Express