Getting Down to Brass Tacks

THIS MONTH, A herd of 100 life-size elephants, handcrafted from Lantana camara plants by indigenous artisans in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, have landed in Los Angeles following a whirlwind trip around the US. The Great Elephant Migration, as this long journey is named, is a fund-raising initiative to support wildlife conservation and indigenous community development with emphasis on Asia’s wild elephants. Each elephant has been created by The Real Elephant Collective, a community of 200 indigenous artisans from communi­ties of India’s Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. The collective has spent the past five years bringing to life every elephant they live alongside, in intricately detailed sculp­tural form. Marking the elephants’ arrival in Los Angeles is another initiative with roots in India: Wrapped in History, a textile initiative featuring 70 handmade blankets created by designers, crafts organisations and indigenous communi­ties. One finds international names such as Ralph Lauren, Diane von Furstenberg and Collina Strada among participants, but Indians dominate the lineup— Ritu Kumar, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Bibhu Mohapatra, Chanakya School of Craft, Weavers Studio, péro, and Raw Mango among several others.

Set to be auctioned between July 18 and August 1, Wrapped in History is curated by designer Vikram Goyal. Based in Delhi, Goyal is the founder of his eponymous design studio, known for its brass artworks and objects, and the contemporary Indian design label Viya. Goyal has been supporting wildlife conservation, particularly that of the Asian elephants, for many years as a patron of the UK-based NGO The Elephant Family (TEF). “When Ruth [Ganesh, principal trustee of TEF] asked me to help with the project, I thought that it would be a great way to showcase the best of Indian textiles, designs and craftsman­ship that speaks to a level of compassion and understanding about conservation and sensitivity,” says Goyal. “We went to well-known designers as well as younger names, crafts institutions, or regions such as the Northeast to get a broad cross-section of textiles, weaving, design and embroidery from India.” And it has barely skimmed the surface, Goyal adds. Curating a second instalment of the project may not be on the cards yet, but based on the response he has received since the unveiling of the project, it is certainly possible.

THIS IS THE first time Goyal has undertaken such a curatorial role, but he views Wrapped in History in line with all that he has done over the past 25 years. An academic background in engineering, and a degree in development economics from Princeton University, may not have sug­gested a future career in art and design but Goyal—who spent his early years between Delhi and his maternal family home in Rajasthan—always had a keen interest in Indian culture and storytell­ing. At the turn of the new millennium, he switched tracks from finance and re­turned to India. Early ventures included co-founding the Indian luxury beauty label Kama Ayurveda, but Goyal’s big­gest success story came with finding his niche in brass. “I wanted to develop a modern Indian design language, using Indian art and architecture as inspira­tion,” he says. Wanting to work with a “local, old material,” he found brass to be a natural fit.

In a growing—and increasingly, booming—creative ecosystem in India, Goyal positions his works at an inter­section of art, crafts, and design. Brass becomes a canvas, hammered, carved, and moulded into statement furniture, wall decor and works of art. Take for in­stance, Garden of Life, a multi-panel mural spanning 9 feet in height and 22 feet in width—where nature and mythol­ogy meet in the depiction of peacocks, monkeys, tigers and blackbucks in a forest scene along with the mythologi­cal Gajasimha. Or, the Song of the Forest collection which translates the lush landscapes of Indian mangroves and woods onto screens, consoles, sconces, and coffee tables.

Beyond the gilded, highly ornamen­tal works, Goyal’s other designs speak in a more minimalist, edgier language. The Brutalist movement becomes the inspiration for The Tree of Good Fortune, a sculpture made by welding cast metal sheets while the Palazzo Bench takes cues from Italian Renaissance architecture. Landscapes and topography inspire designs such as the Mesa Cabinet, or the Thar console whose rippling surface mimics the Indian desert it is named after. “It’s almost as if they are two different worlds—one is organic, super contempo­rary and abstract works and then, we have the more decorative, symbolic interpre­tations in repoussé,” he says. “I enjoy being on this spectrum—I don’t want to be defined by one language because my interest lies in both.”

What remains constant is a focus through these two parallel design vocabu­laries is an emphasis on craftsmanship. Goyal’s works are supersized not only in build but also in ambition—pushing the possibilities of metalwork. Over the years the design studio has developed various signatures drawing from traditional crafts as well as innovations. The fluting process scores metal sheets with lines or breaks while a spinning technique culminates in tiered structures. Goyal’s designs are often inlaid with semi-precious stones, an exploration of the Italian tradition of pietra dura while the Hollowed Joinery technique has been developed in the stu­dio, in which pieces of hammered brass sheet metal are welded together with a hollow structure inside. And then, there is repoussé—a decorative technique that involves hammering low-relief designs into metal sheets from the reverse. It has become synonymous with Goyal, showcased in his most iconic designs and bestsellers.

The karigars’ skills anchor every piece of work produced in the studio. Its headquarters in Noida, a sprawling space surrounded by trees, also houses the workshop where artisans execute Goyal’s signatures, from small vases intricately adorned with botanical and organic motifs to large brass works painstakingly hammered by hand. Sampling new designs, playing with shapes and sizes, and finding new inspiration are part of everyday processes.

Repoussé is particularly challenging, and almost magical in its craftsmanship. Artisans dig into the metal, from one side to reveal the design on the other. When working on Goyal’s large-scale murals and artworks, metalsmiths sit on the sheets of metal, supported on a base of wax compounds, hammering away at each piece over several days and weeks. Every breath they draw at work can make or break a motif. The process of repoussé, and Goyal’s karkhana model interven­tions, became the subject of Drawing in Metal, a documentary short directed by Aradhana Seth and unveiled in October 2023 in collaboration with India Art Fair.

Goyal’s work has begun to appear in exhibition and gallery spaces only in more recent years. His first major exhibi­tion came in 2018 with a retrospective show in Delhi’s Bikaner House; a few years later, he made his India Art Fair debut in 2023. Since then, he has been a steady presence at the fair. “We were the first design studio to be asked to show­case there, and we went on to anchor the entire design pavilion in the subsequent edition,” he says. “We have shown thrice, and each time has been better.” From this showcase, Goyal turned towards the international market. Collaborating with Italian gallery Nilufar by Nina Yashar, Goyal made his debut at Salone Del Mo­bile (also known as Milan Design Week) in 2023 followed by PAD London.

Along with his ongoing experiments on brass, Goyal is also working on Viya, a design label he launched last year. Viya, which was the erstwhile name of Vikram Goyal Design Studio, extends his design repertoire into new directions and products. Think trolleys made from brass and cane, baby bassinets, embroidered lampshades and table linen, sculptural lightings and furniture. Brass continues to play a starring role, but other materials such as cane and Indian textile traditions shine equally brightly. The materials are familiar to Indian crafts vocabulary, but their treatment is “India agnostic”, created with an eye on international audiences who are looking beyond traditional designs. In India, the brand is available online and is showcased through pop­ups—following shows in Mumbai and Delhi over the past year. Viya is one of the participating labels in The Elephant Mi­gration’s Wrapped in History project—the Dreamscape Blanket, depicting embroi­dered motifs of Gajaraja and Gajasimha, the Elephant Lion in a scenery filled with forests and wildlife.

The Dreamscape is one of Goyal’s most well-known design stories, and also perhaps a narrative that offers the deepest glimpse into his imagination. A 17th-century Rajput manuscript, The Book of Dreams, becomes the inspiration of a fabulist scenery rife with figures drawn from mythology and the natural world, and motifs symbolic of luck, hope, and fortune. As his practice has grown and flourished, Goyal keeps to his role as a cultural custodian, still as invested as he was a quarter of a century ago in presenting India through a differ­ent lens. The world is finally catching up with him.

artistcontemporary aestheticscultural linkdesignRalph LaurenSabyasachi MukherjeeThe great elephant migrationtraditionVikram Goyal