With tens of thousands of colourful dots, this artist has paid rich tributes to Lord Vishnu’s ‘form of Dasavatharam’.
An instructor in traditional painting at the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams-run Sri Venkateswara Institute of Traditional Sculpture and Architecture, Ginne Sagar has come up with huge portraits measuring 4 ft x 2.5 ft of each of the 10 manifestations of Lord Vishnu.
An expert in Pointillism, the art of drawing images through dots, he started the art form in 1984 with black and white images by using black refill pens. Mr. Sagar shot to fame by drawing the dotted portrait of then Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao.
Paradigm shift in medium
He later chose colour refills and ivory sheet as the medium, before settling down to permanent marker colours and canvas, which proved to be a paradigm shift, as it gave a longer shelf life to the images. His total collection includes a whopping 600 such images, all made of resplendent dots.
These ‘Dasavathara’ images adhere to the measurements and style as specified in the ‘Shilpa Shastra’ (traditional Indian sculpture). The work was originally started as a pastime during the fag end of COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, which was completed recently, though after a break.
Mr. Sagar used golden yellow, ochre yellow and brown pens for the ‘Dasavathara’ set that is primarily yellow in shade. It took him a mind-boggling 45 days to complete each of the 10 images.
It was in 2006 that Mr. Sagar attracted the nation’s attention by drawing 120 portraits comprising the entire Union Cabinet, starting from then President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to include then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and all Ministers.
“The continuous pecking of dots on the canvas for hours together involves stress, fatigue, eye pain and low backache. But I am keen on promoting this new media”, says Mr. Sagar, maintaining that he is one of the handful of players across the globe to specialise in pointillism.
The veteran artist is on the job of creating a new generation of disciples willing to master the patience-testing art form.
