Room For More Art: Uday Garala believes art is representation of culture, lifestyle and thoughts

Abir Pothi presents Room For More Art — a series of features on interior designers across geographic boundaries, discussing with them the nuances of their profession, their methods of sourcing and projecting art into their work, the challenges they face, and a whole lot more perspective.

Uday Garala: \’Art is simultaneously a representation of a user and a space\’

It has been over a decade now, since 2010, that Craft Madness has flourished in Gujarat’s Rajkot as a multidisciplinary design firm — and its principal designer Uday Garala firmly believes that the driving force behind this success has always been an openness to continuous learning, sheer joy and pride in work, and embracing change as the only constant in life. Growing exponentially over the years, he has undertaken projects of diverse facets, such as farmhouses and small residences, or urban services like bus ports, entertainment complexes, exhibition spaces, stores, individual shops or luxury residential and non-residential high-rise buildings. Known for a unique approach to architecture and interior design, Garala creates bespoke projects that follow an intimate process of discovering each client’s personal style – and this is also where art comes into the picture, becoming a representation both of a user and of a space simultaneously. For Garala, the design process has also remained firmly rooted to the concept of ‘Sanskriti’ — he professes that he tries to source local art from local artisans and use that majorly, so that local culture is reflected in their projects, besides sourcing art from all over the world as well. This translates into projects that are neither afraid of scale, nor of subtleties. They follow a clean and minimalistic use of light and dimensions, using colour and form to portray powerful art. There is a masterful use of materials like wood, glass, textile, stone, etc. all coming together to create an upscale vibe that is elegant yet practical, and definitely both classic and modern. Garala asserts that art becomes a conduit to express the desires or personal ideas of occupants inhabiting any space, to show what they believe in. He tries to incorporate art seamlessly not just as installations, but as a device that tells a story, after exploring the client’s needs and putting much effort into getting their thoughts visible in the art used — which is both indispensable and a building block of any design process, Garala says.

Some samples of his work: