Coimbatore artist creates record with staple art of Dhanush’s character from Karnan

When Coimbatore-based artist

Seevaga Valuthy

came out of the theatre after watching Mari Selvaraj and Dhanush’s

Karnan

last April, he was so emotionally moved by the film and the characters in it that he decided to pay a tribute to the team. As in his previous outings, where he had made a 3D illustration of a portrait of Kamal Haasan using 3,072 cups and a string art of the actor with 13,000 nails, he wanted to take the path less trodden this time as well. And he chose staple art for the same.

“When I did some research, I learnt that not many have experimented with staple pins and it was an interesting challenge to take up. The idea was to make a portrait of Karnan (Dhanush) and Kaattu Pechi (the goddess in the film). I have been planning to do an artwork on Dhanush ever since he won the National Award for Asuran as I was quite blown away by his portrayal of Sivasamy in the film. And Karnan gave fresh impetus to the idea. This is a tribute to one of the finest actors and storytellers of this generation, Dhanush and Mari Selvaraj sir.”

Today,

Seevaga

is not only basking in the praise from the Karnan team, but his work has also made it to the

International Book of Records

. “Kalaippuli

Thanu

sir, the producer of Karnan, had shared about my achievement on his social media page. The recognition from the entire Karnan team, well-wishers and the certificate are a huge shot in the arm for artists like us. Every artist should get a platform to exhibit their talent without the medium being a barrier.”

Talking about the one-month-long process of making the portrait, Seevaga says, “I sketched the image on an

MDF

board. I then stapled the pins manually. I tried using different machines to do the trick, but they didn’t work and I had to opt for a regular staple machine. The pins had to be aligned properly. For instance, the places where the shade had to be darker, I had to staple more pins. I couldn’t work on the portrait for more than 3-4 hours on a day as my hands would hurt. I ended up using around 1 million pins by the time I finished. My brother offered a helping hand. After 30 days, I finished the portrait and sent it for the records.”

Today, an elated Seevaga says that he is completely satisfied with the outcome. “I made it to the International Book of Records for the ‘largest staple art portrait of actor Dhanush’ and the ‘largest string art portrait of actor Kamal Haasan’,” he signs off with a smile.