Eminent micro-artist Mattewada Ajay Kumar has come up with yet another piece of interesting art on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Gandhi- a wax depiction of the Dandi March led by Mahatma Gandhi during India’s struggle for freedom.
But this replica of the statue originally built in Delhi comes with a difference. It is not visible to the naked eye and requires a microscope to view it. Because Ajay Kumar has carved Gandhi and his seven followers not on a ceramic base, but inside the eye of a sewing needle!
Built between the dimensions of 0.18mm and 1.09mm in length and 0.21mm to 0.18mm in width, Ajay Kumar has given finesse to each of the eight models, from the intricate fold on Gandhi’s dhoti to the wisp of hair on the woman following him.
Mattewada Ajay Kumar
Ajay Kumar, who lives in Warangal, has been practicing micro-art for the past 28 years and is a goldsmith by profession. Speaking to TNM, the artist says that it is from his father Venkata Chary, who was also a goldsmith, that he learnt the art of micro-sculpture.
“I began doing micro-art on rice granules where I painted faces of famous personalities on grains of rice. Later on, I started experimenting with matchsticks and then started sculpting with gold,” Ajay Kumar says.
His micro works include animals, deities, freedom-fighters made of wax and a pair of miniature scissors and violin made of gold.
It took 30 hours through 11 days for Ajay to complete the Dandi March models. “It’s a lot of strain to look through a microscope and carve models. Hence, I do not work more than 4-5 hours on a sculpture in a day. The Dandi statues are a tribute to my father who was also a freedom fighter,” Ajay Kumar says.
Ajay Kumar found a place in the Limca Book of Records for making the smallest seven-levered lock in the world using gold, weighing around 1.5 gram, in 2004. He is the third micro artist in the world after 61-year-old Willard Wigan and 46-year-old Yury Deulin to sculpt inside the eye of a needle.
Ajay Kumar has also received appreciation from Abdul Kalam, PV Narasimha Rao and Vajpayee for sending them their portraits painted on rice granules.
On August 15 this year, Ajay Kumar made news for carving a freedom fighter holding the national flag atop a pin head. Last year, he was appreciated for sculpting models of Lord Ganesha and Jesus inside a needle head.
