Creating couture carpets

Aptly titled, ‘Renaissance’ is a show that aims to revive the carpet culture.

A brilliant amalgamation of exquisite carpets and art sculptures, the show blends intricately designed carpets with classic and contemporary art.

The event displays couture carpets meticulously designed by Ayush Choudhary and some of the most famous works of various renowned sculptors like Paresh Maity, Radhakrishnan, Sakti Burman and Nandagopal to name a few. Each sculpture will be harmonised with a different hand-knotted carpet from Cocoon.

“It is the diwali season and people are looking forward to accesorising their house,” says Ayush Choudhary, owner of the Cocoon Fine Rugs Gallery. “We have been doing carpets for the last 30 years. It is one of the traditional and finest Indian art forms. The idea is to give the audience a chance to embellish their house with the carpet, sculpture combo for the festive season,” he adds.

He asserts that carpets are actually art pieces! “We thought of what medium would go best with them and decided that sculptures and carpets look fantastic together. So we took up some really nice works by well-known artists and teamed them up with a particular carpet. It is the first time we are doing something like this and we hope this will help revive the carpet trend,” says Ayush, lamenting that carpet art is suffering because of the new age flooring styles and patterns.

In keeping with the exhibition’s theme, the art works too are characteristically Indian. For instance, the piece by Paresh Maity — who has recently begun experimenting with sculptures, after having achieved proficiency in several art mediums — ‘Man & Woman’ is defined by bold lines and strong style. Maity’s stunning work portrays the concept of Ardhenareshwar (God in form of half male and half female), where the artist has painted the feminine side to the man and vice versa in fibre glass sculptures.