Little is known in the northern side of India about the rave that was Silk Smitha. Bold and beautiful, she was all that filmmakers wanted for their films.
SeevagaVazhuthi with actor-politician Kamal Haasan and the string art portrait | Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
SeevagaVazhuthi spends several hours with nails and threads to create string art portraits, a nascent art form. His recent work involves Kamal Haasan and 13,000 nails
Actor-politician Kamal Haasan stares out of a wooden board in an intricate eight feet tall portrait; created by Coimbatore-based artist SK Seevaga Vazhuthi, this is a string art of the veteran actor made on a grid of 13,000 nails. “It took me three days just to hammer the nails on the board,” he says.
Black threads criss-cross around nails, and the result is a larger-than-life portrait the product of 250 hours of labour over 28 days. It is a fan’s tribute to an icon, someone whom I have admired from my childhood ,” says Seevaga, noting how dinner time conversations at his home still includes Kamal versus Rajini debates.“ I belong to Kamal sir’s camp,” he laughs.