Works of a lifetime
Artists Surya Prakash and Chippa Sudhakar create two unbelievable works in the city
Surya Prakash and Chippa Sudhakar’s two stunning pieces of art, which are their biggest till date — three walls each of 30ftx15ft and a 16ftx44ft mural — have found a home at the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute’s new block.
Out of the comfort zone
“Paints and brushes were my best friends for the last five-and-a-half decades. But this time, I decided that I was going to step out of my comfort zone and create something unique,” says Surya Prakash
As one enters the new wing of the building one sees Surya Prakash’s masterpiece. Tiny pieces of thousands of stones — granite, marble and tiles — chipped and placed together on three walls each of 30ftx14 ft, complete a scene from a forest, all surrounded by natural rock formations.
“When I was informed about this project, the idea was to save the rocks and so I decided to create art that would complement them,” he says. The project took close to three months to finish and for once, Surya Prakash stayed away from his brush.
Working on such a large project is not easy, especially one that doesn’t deal with paints. “With a painting, if I make a wrong move I can paint over it, but in this case I had to remove the attached piece of stone and redo the entire thing,” he says.
Through the mind’s eye
When artist Chippa Sudhakar was asked to create an art work for the eye hospital, he immediately knew what he was going to create. The 16ftx44ft mural, that will be a “permanent remembrance of him”, follows the day-to-day occurrences in a person’s life and it took three months to complete.
“The sun and the moon on the top corners of the mural is to suggest the length of the day when the eye sees nature in its different dimensions. Apart from nature the work includes elements of civilisation and modernity,” he says.
The artwork was created by putting together 36 pieces of art, each 5ftx4 ft.
Chippa adds, “The space that was given for the work was magnificent! I had to create something that would stay in the memory of people. This is the biggest artwork that I have created till date and I’m thoroughly pleased with it.”