It started with a wedding gift.
A client came to us wanting to gift a friend something for their wedding — something made specially for them, rather than something simply picked off a shelf.
And because a wedding, in so many ways, marks the beginning of building a home together, that became our starting point.
Could we make an artwork that felt like a home, without actually drawing a house?
No roof. No windows lined up neatly. No little door in the centre.
Instead, we wanted to take the idea of a home and break it down into forms, materials, layers and little architectural references — and then put them back together in our own way.
So, naturally, the workshop floor became our canvas.
We started with scraps and offcuts of wood in different sizes, grains and thicknesses. Some were curved, some rectangular, some imperfect. There were long strips, chunky blocks, cut-outs and pieces that probably wouldn't have had much meaning individually.
Together, though, they began to suggest something. A doorway here. A window there. A wall. A ledge. Perhaps a staircase. Perhaps nothing quite so literal at all. And that was exactly the point. The first few compositions were really just us moving things around. A little to the left. No, back again. Turn this one. Remove that. Add another piece. Photograph it. Stare at the photograph. Change everything again.
As the composition developed, we started playing with the surfaces too. Some pieces retained the warmth and grain of natural wood, while others were stained much darker. A flat black plane gave the composition some weight. We drilled repeated holes into another piece, turning a leftover piece of timber into something almost like a screen or jaali. Elsewhere, grooves, arches, cut-outs and tiny blocks started creating their own architectural language.
The artwork slowly moved away from being a collection of wooden scraps and began feeling like a tiny abstract neighbourhood of its own. What we particularly liked was that we didn't have to decide exactly what every form represented. One person might see a doorway in the curved wooden piece. Someone else might see an arch. The little blocks could become steps, windows, balconies or simply rhythm within the composition. It gave just enough of a hint of a home without telling you exactly how to see it.
There were several versions along the way. We tried lighter woods, darker stains, different positions and different balances between the larger forms and the smaller details. Some versions felt too scattered. Some felt too neat. Some had all the right pieces but somehow still didn't feel right.
Eventually, the palette became deeper and more grounded, with warm and dark woods sitting against black and neutral surfaces. The perforated wood brought texture, while the smaller pieces added just enough irregularity to stop the composition from becoming too structured.
And then came the frame. Instead of putting the artwork behind a conventional border, we upholstered the base and finished its edges in a bold black-and-white striped fabric. It was slightly unexpected against all that wood — which is probably why we liked it.
Suddenly, everything came together.
What began as an idea about home had become an artwork made from many individual parts, each different in its shape, texture and character, but somehow belonging together.
Which, when we thought about it, felt rather appropriate for a wedding gift.
There is also something we love about the fact that so much of the artwork came from pieces of wood that might otherwise have remained workshop offcuts. Instead of forcing them into perfect new shapes, their existing proportions, grains, imperfections and oddities became part of the composition.
Maybe that is what made this one particularly special for us.
It wasn't an artwork we could have completely drawn and then reproduced exactly.
It had to be discovered on the workshop floor — one piece moved, one hole drilled, one surface stained and approximately fifty "what if we put this here?" moments at a time.
And somewhere between all those iterations, we found our little abstract home.
