John Abraham loves his fast cars and bikes, and having accumulated a bunch of their parts over the years, he wanted to do something special with them. We share the journey of this unique automotive art project.
John Abraham’s love for exotic automobiles is no secret, and it’s something we’ve been able to showcase at Autocar multiple times. Like that time when he shared his hot new Lamborghini with our viewers all those years back, or more recently, when he spoke about his love for automobiles on our podcast.
Artist Arzan Khambatta brought John’s vision to life.
It’s that passion that led to the creation of this project. Essentially, John had accumulated a bunch of beautiful bike and car parts over the years, and he wanted to do something special with them. That’s where renowned artist ArzanKhambatta came in. Based in Mumbai, Arzan has dedicated the last four decades of his life to art and sculpture, and he has a particular fondness for working with metal. So, he was the perfect person to turn these individual parts into a collective masterpiece.
With a garage packed with superbikes, there were some gorgeous parts to spare.
Once Arzan took a look at all the parts John had collected, the ideas immediately began to form. After all, this is the kind of project that draws to the roots of Arzan’s artistic journey, which began when he started experimenting with scrap metal all the way back in 1982. While he and John were going over the various pieces, he pointed out that a lot of the pieces here were so sculptural on their own that you could just mount them on a stand, and that would be enough! But Arzan knew what John had in mind, so the parts were carefully shipped to his studio, where he could truly begin the creative process.
It wasn’t just bike parts; some of John’s supercars also donated towards the cause!
As for John, he couldn’t wait to see what Arzan would come up with. “I really don’t know how he’s going to put it together. But knowing Arzan, he’s going to create something that’s absolutely spectacular, and because it involves motorcycle parts, I have a feeling that whatever we’re going to get out is going to be really soulful and beautiful.”
An artist for over 40 years, Arzan has a studio full of unique, offbeat and wonderful items.
After giving Arzan some time to get the creative juices flowing, we visited him in his studio and got to see the sculpture slowly taking shape. At this point, he had sketched out his initial plan and then spent a lot of time pondering how it would all piece together.
Initial sketches helped piece out the concept for the final layout.
As the overall shape materialised in his mind, a structure was slowly created until he ended up with the final result – a genuinely dynamic and eye-catching piece of art.
The supporting frame was designed to be as minimal as possible, leaving the parts to steal the limelight.
Clearly, this was a special project for Arzan as well, “I completely enjoyed the process because it took me back to my childhood days of making ‘scraptures’ – that’s what I called them because I used to make them out of scrap. So many parts came together here, and since these forms are so powerful, the whole sculpture came out powerful. That’s why I call it Shakti.”
The ‘warrior’s shield’ is one of the few additions Arzan made to the sculpture
With the sculpture carefully transported back to John’s studio garage, the actor finally got to see the end result of a nearly two-year process, and he absolutely loved it. “I imagined something close to this because I thought it was going to be a Transformers sort of thing, but I didn’t visualise how Arzan conceptualised things like the face, moustache, the hand and the shield, so that’s fantastic. I’m blown away by it.”
The ready sculpture being carefully shipped back to its home.
The essence of this project is that it captures numerous stories from John’s past, and while some of those bikes and cars may have moved on, he will always have Shakti as a reminder. He summed it up beautifully, “All I’ve done is battle all my life, to prove a point all my life, to fight every day, just to belong. And Shakti is now going to give me that inspiration to stay there and fight!”
Also see: John Abraham’s one-off bike parts sculpture by Arzan Khambatta video
