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Creating beauty from waste
JOHNNY MIKHAIL is best known for his paintings of trees. He prides in capturing them on canvas in their various shapes, sizes and `moods'. Often, his paintings look like caricatures, but they bring alive the gnarled, yet mysterious beauty of trees.
An exhibition of objects of art made from discarded material, organised by Mikhail on the pavement in front of the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday, the World Environment Day, brought out another facet of his talent.
"There is no such thing as a waste product in the world; everything has some use or the other," he says. The paintings were there, but apart from these, dozens of paintings and sculptures made from waste products such as egg-shells, disposable plates and cups and paper-mache egg-trays as well as natural material such as dry leaves, dry flowers, seeds, twigs and pieces of bark, were on display.
A good number of these artefacts were made by the children who participated in a two-month vacation camp in the city under Mikhail's supervision.
About 20 children, aged between three and 12, took part in the camp, which was organised by Asian Waves Kalapadana Kendram at Vellayambalam.
It needs only a few snicks with a knife and a touch of green paint to convert a piece of dry mahogany bark into an ornamental fish, complete with the scales and tail-fin.
Dry leaves can be converted into a fish in a jiffy, points out Mikhail.
Once the children got the hang of things, their fertile imagination took over. They learnt to recognise the artistic value of waste material and, with a little help, to put them to use. For instance, a four-year-old has turned a coconut-shell turned into a kitten's face by giving it a pair of coir whiskers.
By Harish Govind M
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