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Spirituality runs through the works of S Dhinakara sundar. Spirit perfects his process. The artist and professor, a resident of Pulianthope in north Chennai, who has been using the lotus leaf as his canvas for 15 years, says he picked the leaf because of its significance in the religious culture of south Asia, especially India. "The lotus leaf is a recurrent theme in both Indian and Buddhist cultures. For instance, Goddess Lakshmi is seated on a lotus. It is een in Egyptian art and is also our national flower. Everything about the lotus drew me to it," says the 46-year old artist, whose series 'Padma' is on display at Dakshinchitra till September 29.
"When I was a teen, I would accompany my mother to temples and be more fascinated by the lotus leaves in pond than in the ongoing pujas," says sundar, who studied at the Government College of Fine Arts in Chennai. The fascination persisted, and when he was in college, he spoke to his mentor and professor Alphonso Arul Doss of the Madras Movement, about wanting to paint on the leaf. "I just did not want to use canvas and paper," he says.
Spurred on by his professor, sundar researched with biochemists on how to remove the waxy coating on the leaves that does not allow water colours to stick. And that's when the spirit entered the process. "I found that if I soaked the leaf in a solution of nitric acid, methane and rum, it would remove the coating without destroying the intricate venation of the leaf or draining it of its colour. The technique took many months to perfect," says sundar, adding that it is a laborious 21-step process to prepare the leaf as a canvas.