For centuries, stones have been more than just the backbone of architecture — they carried the weight of civilizations. From Roman roads to Indian temple corridors, from Ottoman domes to modern-day skylines, stones stood as both witnesses and participants. Yet, in our everyday lives, it is often reduced to being treated as a raw material rather than a vessel of narratives.
On Friday night, that narative was challenged at Cholamandal Artists’ Village. Stone Portraits, hosted by StoneX, transformed stones into storytellers. Through a multisensory experience — including sculpture, artisan craft, provenance tales, and even chocolates designed to distill the essence of landscapes that are millions of years old — the event invited Chennai to witness stones as living art of memory and culture.
The journey began with a sculpture — The Monarch, created in Grigio Bronze Amani marble by artist R Magesh. The piece, a fractured horse’s head, was both majestic and unsettling; its surface alive with tension. Magesh, who trained as a painter in Chennai and Baroda before turning to sculptures, explained, “The horse is a symbol of power, but also of oppression and victimhood. The broken warrior horse head reflects the fall of power. Power is never permanent. Every rise hides suppressed voices, every relic carries stories of loss.” Here, the horse stood not just as an emblem of strength but as a reminder that history is as much about fractures as it is about triumphs. Standing beneath Cholamandal’s banyan canopy, the stone horse seemed to absorb the silence of the venue. It was a prologue to an evening dedicated to reframing stones as memory.
The guests were then ushered into the display hall where there were life-sized book installations titled Stone Portraits and each “book” opened to a new provenance. There were five stones from across Europe, each with its own geological journey, cultural story, and a paired chocolate by ITC’s Fabelle division. “Chocolate has a universal language,” said Sushant Pathak, CMO of StoneX. “By pairing it with stone, we wanted people to feel that connection in a personal, multisensory way. It’s not just about looking at stone, it’s about experiencing it.”
The 'Bianco Vogue' display from Greece's Egenclo was accompanied by Dolce Sospira, a chocolate layered with espresso and cocoa, inspired by Italian rituals of slowing down and savouring life. The 'Lasa Covelano' of the Italian Alps, a 400-million-year-old metamorphic marvel, was paired with Ohrid Noir, dark chocolate studded with roasted walnut. The stone's purity has graced Roman roads and modern skyscrapers alike, while the chocolate grounded its grandeur in something earthy and intimate. The 'Pantheon' stone from North Macedonia told stories of quarrying families, Byzantine churches, and Balkan festivals. Its culture and citizen's livelihood were mirrored in Elysian Bite, a chocolate infused with olive oil, sea salt, and dark chocolate. The 'Pirgon' of northern Greece carried the crispness of mountain air, reflected in Aegean Glow, a lemon ganache and pistachio truffle that brightened the palate. And finally, 'Thassos Novelato', the "divinity of the Aegean", gleamed with crystal purity. Its pairing, Fior de Fico, fig compote and whipped feta condensed the flavours of the island into a single, thoughtful bite. Each stone was presented not as a commodity, but as a cultural biography, its journey told through touch, sight, sound, and taste. ITC's Fabelle division along with StoneX spent six months creating the chocolates ensuring every flavour mirrored the spirit of its stone.
For Sushant, the evening was about shifting perspectives. “We are here to change the way people see stone,” he said. “It’s not a commodity. It’s a living story.” Sushant traced the idea back to a trip to Lasa, near Milan, where quarrying is seen as cultivation rather than extraction. “Stone takes millions of years to form. Unlike a tree, it doesn’t grow back. People need to respect it, love it, and use it consciously,” he said.
Beyond the immersive displays, the evening closed with live craft. Four artisans from Mahabalipuram — S Velliyan, A Viswanathan, S Suresh, and P Saravanan — demonstrated the age-old art of chiselling marble. Each had more than two decades of experience, their hands moving with unerring rhythm of the machines as they carved. Guests were invited to sketch on marble, which the artisans then turned into souvenirs.
The Chennai showcase was the second in a series that will travel to Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.