The wizard of wax

While Mohanlal waits for a glossy makeover, Mammootty is having his hair tonged. Nearby, Yesudas is getting some attention, and at the end of the table, Rajinikanth and Shah Rukh Khan are awaiting their turn. This is the maintenance room inside a house at Thiruvalla, where wax models of film stars and sports celebrities come life at the hands of sculptor Hari Kumbanad.

It’s not hard to chisel away at a block of stone and make something that resembles a human form. But it takes a true master to create photorealistic sculptures in marble and wax. Hari is a self-taught sculptor from Thiruvalla who can make stone and wax “come alive”. Though he started as a stone and wood sculptor, for the past four years he has been turning his attention to something else. It all started when this sculptor visited the wax museum in Lonavala in Pune.  

“After visiting the museum in Pune, I was fascinated by the lifelike wax statues. So I decided to learn it. But as I could not find anyone doing it in Kerala, I started learning it my own, just like how I started learning sculpting when I was 4 years old,” says Hari. 

After four years, he has completed seven wax statues. Two of them are fully completed and the others are getting ready for the final touch. Last week, he unveiled two of his completed works — lifelike statues of actors Mohanlal and Mammootty. Since then, Hari says appreciation has been pouring in.   

“Whenever I decide to make a sculpture, I want it to be something that anybody can relate to or identify. So that’s why I decided to do both Mohanlal and Mammootty,” he says.  

Wax museums are famous for pre-planning before sculpting each of their subjects. They spend a lot of time researching each subject’s appearance. They even measure the physique of the real person before starting the work. But interestingly, Hari says he has not even seen any of his subjects in real life.  

“I never had a chance to meet them. So I had to rely on pictures. As an artiste, I started to study their body features. I used the internet to find out their height and body mass,” he says. In those two sculptures, you can see the beauty of the two actors’ aging process. 

The most impressive thing about his work is how realistic it is. When you look at the sculptures’ wrinkles, it’s hard to tell them from real ones.

Unlike other sculptors, Hari carved each of his sculptures in a way that it can be dismantled into several pieces. “The wax that I use for each work costs more than Rs. 1 lakh and is imported from abroad. Once the face was completed, I searched for the hair. I used real hair for every sculpture,” he explains. 

Even though only his fully completed works have shot to fame recently, he has been famous before that. In November 2017, when he crafted Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s sculpture, the actor himself posted its image on his Twitter account.  “I had received many positive feedbacks and even got calls from his fans in Pakistan,” shares Hari.  During the release of Baahubali 2, Hari sculpted Telugu actor Prabhas and posted the video on his Facebook page. In a few days’ time, the video went viral and gathered over 18 lakh viewers. 

Born in a family where sculpting was the family business, he says he showed interest in the art from very young age. His mother discovered his interest and nurtured it. But he says he never asked for any help. “Though I was very keen to make things, I was a kid who wanted to try everything on my own. At first it was using clay and small stones. I have a special bond with the very first sculpture I made during school days, which won me a certificate. I still keep it with me. And I always try not to follow anyone else’s style. I am not shy or hesitant to say out loud that I am a self-taught artiste,” he says. 

His long-term ambition is to start a new museum where people can come and see his works. But he won’t fill it with so many works. “I don’t believe in making too many things. But I aim to try doing it with utmost perfection,” he concludes.