Vikram Goyal

STORIES IN BRASS

- Pooja Singh

“What do you think?” asks Vikram Goyal, one of India's leading product designers, showing me his latest work on an iPad. We are in his study at his home in a quiet south Delhi neighbourhood, surrounded by family photos, an M.F. Husain painting, framed sketches picked up from his travels, furniture upholstered with ceremonial textiles made for the Bhutanese royal family, and books on design, economics and history.

On the screen is Karabha, a seated baby elephant with a playful glint in its eyes—a three-dimensional sculpture that doubles as a bench made in brass, a metal that's become synonymous with Goyal's work, which includes furniture, lighting and design objects. Three slides later is the twist: Karabha's butt has a secret compartment, inside which lies an image that tells a tale from the Panchatantra, called The Mice and the Elephants. The story of how kindness begets kindness—a herd of elephants chooses an alternate route to the river to avoid trampling mouse homes, and is repaid years later when the mice gnaw through ropes on traps to free the herd—is told through the repoussé metalworking technique, where a sheet of brass is hammered on the reverse side to create images in relief.

"This 3D work has been completely out of my comfort zone," says Goyal, 60. "We have done 10ft (wall panels), 2D animals, birds, but this is absolutely new to me... to get the expressions right, the body right, the structure right."

Karabha is one of the five animal sculptures Goyal and his team of 200-odd artisans have created over six months as part of Vikram Goyal Studio's latest project, The Soul Garden. Each animal represents a certain quality and carries a Panchatantra fable in repoussage. All five are on display till 26 October at the L'Hôtel de Maisons gardens, once the Paris home of Karl Lagerfeld, as part of Goyal's debut showcase at Design Miami/Paris, the European edition of the collectible design fair.