Beauty in the everyday

The exhibition is on at 47-A Gallery till August 16. Pics courtesy/Sona Reddy

A comb, a brush or even a street lamp are objects we rarely stop to admire anymore. Yet for Hyderabad-based architect and designer Sona Reddy, these ordinary things hold extraordinary possibilities.

Her latest exhibition, Rooted, now on at 47-A Gallery till August 16, is a collection of furniture, objects and artworks drawn from antique botanical illustrations, Indian craft traditions and materials such as stone, ceramic, glass and silk.

With each piece, you will notice that rather than recreating nature, Reddy preserves its memory, translating fleeting blooms into enduring objects.

"Most of the materials used are rooted to where they are from, in terms of whether it's, say, the glass or the stone or the ceramic," she says, explaining the exhibition's title. "They're earth materials. We're working with a lot of flowers, that's the major theme, even in terms of the aesthetics of all the pieces. So, Rooted actually stems from there, but it's also definitely the material play."

The collection began with a chance discovery of two illustrated botany textbooks dating back to 1839. The artworks in these textbooks - which will be on display at 47A - helped shape the visual language of the collection.

"In those days, they used to print the text, but they actually hand-painted whenever they had any pictorial stuff. So each of the textbooks was hand-painted. I found these in an antique store a couple of years ago, and I've always been wanting to do something with them. A lot of the colour inspiration started from there," says Reddy.

Sona Reddy

Those historical illustrations find new life across the exhibition. The Rosa Collection captures the layered form of blooming roses in Jaisalmer stone, handcrafted ceramics and delicate glass inlays.

One of the pieces has hand-painted floral compositions that are painstakingly translated into silk-thread embroidery on organza. In another, botanical illustrations are housed inside handcrafted Channapatna wood frames, turning them into contemporary collectible artworks.

Reddy says she finds inspiration in the overlooked corners of everyday life. "I am very drawn to old things," she says, "they have beauty in everything. A lamppost on a road was always ornamental and pretty. It was never just basic. Even a comb or a hairbrush always had some amount of beauty. They were art pieces in themselves. Today, we celebrate them as collectibles, but I think they always had that quality."

That philosophy extends beyond statement furniture into playful objects. One piece in the exhibition is a sculptural tic-tac-toe board, elevating one of the simplest games into something worthy of lingering over.

All of this, Reddy says is the result of many specialised hands working together. One such collaboration involved a family-run glass workshop that has spent decades restoring stained-glass windows.

That dialogue between designer and artisan often reshapes the work itself. "Because I'm collaborating, sometimes I don't know the limitations of a certain craft as much as they do. We always make a sample, try it out, and then only go forward."

As Indian design increasingly goes back to its roots and embraces colour, texture and materiality again, Reddy believes audiences are responding instinctively.

"I slowly see colour coming back. I see stone coming back. I see wood coming back," she says. "We're again going back to the roots and enjoying what we originally had." Perhaps nowhere is that clearer than in her own approach to colour. One table combines black granite with pastel pink, green, and turquoise. Another piece pairs bright yellow Jaisalmer stone with vivid red and green ceramic roses, combinations that sound improbable until they come together.

Reddy is curious rather than certain about how Mumbai will respond. "When I tell you that a piece has green, yellow, and red, it almost sounds tacky. But in Hyderabad, people loved it. So I'm curious to see how Mumbai reacts."