Maestro
MUKTI Art and responsibility to earth is rarely seen as effectively as it is visible in these beautiful iconic creations by this artist who makes mechanical fossils out of electronic waste: Haribabu Natesan
‘Recycled Art’ is what Haribabu calls his work. He uses scrap and junk to sculpt and put together exquisite pieces of art. “I am stopping recycling itself by putting these objects in my art. By doing so, I save electric energy, heat energy, fossil fuels and other energies involved in recycling waste in big or small factories, which leads to global warming. That’s why I call it Mukti (no rebirth),” says the passionate designer who currently calls Mumbai his home. Haribabu experiments with a variety of material, including discarded electronics. Recently he dismantled an HP laser printer toner and was surprised to see loads of very fine black powder emerging from it. He tried to mix it with water but it would not dissolve, floating on the top of the water instead. He then mixed it with an oil medium and used the result to color his works of art. The artist collects junk from friends, relatives, and hardware engineers, he even buys the stuff sometimes! His latest acquisitions are a VCR and a Walkman donated by a friend. Once he has enough, he spends a few days dismantling the products; many of them offer challenges some deliver surprises. He sorts the interesting forms by shape, size and material (plastic, iron, steel, electronic chips, boards, etc.) and stores them in different boxes. That is when he begins visualizing his next art-work. When an idea flashes on his mind he looks at the segregated objects and finds appropriate forms to create a basic skeleton of the art-work.
6 Pool | 8.10 | #2
Haribabu with his latest creation