‘Note’ Worthy Art
Saturday, May 05, 2007Sujatha M P, a resident of Udayanagar, practices an unusual form of art. She uses used stamps and shredded currency notes as her art material to create collages of exquisite art.
Of course she does not actually shred currency notes. She gets them from the Reserve Bank of India.
“The shredded currency is available in the form of compressed cubes or powder (tiny bits of paper), which can be used for art, craft or any other purpose”, she says. Notes of different denominations give different hues.
This is comparatively a new form of art because shredded currency notes were not available in India earlier.
The soiled notes were burnt. The process of burning the currency notes was causing pollution as they are coated with chemicals, pigments and colours, which released harmful pollutants. So in a way this is an environment friendly art.
Weeding out soiled currency notes and replacing them with fresh ones are part of the Clean Note Policy being followed by the RBI over the past three years.
Soiled notes are shredded online. Kumarapapa National Handmade Paper Institute in Sanganer, a Jaipur suburb has been converting shredded currency waste from RBI into durable file covers.
Using stamps and shredded currency bits, Sujatha has created Lord Venkateshwara, Ganesha, Mahatma Gandhi, Kuvempu, Subhash Chandra Bose, the symbol OM, Map of India, Sarvagna (medieval saint of Karnataka).
Sujatha presented a portrait of APJ Abdul Kalam created out of stamps to him during one of his visits to Bangalore and he was very impressed with the artwork. She has exhibited her work at a few places including the World Environment Day celebrations organised by Karnataka State Pollution Control Board.
Sujatha’s inspiration comes from her father M R Prabhakar, a philatelist and numismatist, who has conducted a number of philatelic exhibition in rural schools under the name, “Rurapex.”
She has a science degree and teaches handwriting, another area in which she is proficient, to students of IAF School, Marthahalli.
