BENGALURU: There could be lot of issues right in the world now, but city-based layer tape artist Nithin Sadhu’s biggest concern is the price of a roll of duct tape going up from Rs 40 to Rs 75. Sadhu creates his art simply by pasting brown duct tape which eventually takes a beautiful shape when light shines on it. This is still a lesser known form of art in India.
Giving us a sneak-peek into this form of art, Sadhu says he starts off by putting a base of 2-3 layers of tape on an acrylic board. He then cuts a basic required shape with a surgical knife and starts adding layers of duct tapes wherever required. “If I am doing a portrait of a person, I add around 10-12 layers of tape to get the darkness of the hair. Once complete, it looks like a bunch of tapes pasted together but the magic happens when light is shone on it,” says Sadhu, who has been doing this for four-and-half-years now, and sells each of his work for anywhere between Rs 18,000 and Rs 20,000.
Having always had a knack for art, Sadhu has experimented on various media before settling on layer tape art. While he initially tried his hand at water colours, he eventually wanted to do something more unconventional that had not been widely popular in India. “It’s very easy to work with tape compared to water or oil colours. If I try something on my wall with water colours, it’s difficult to remove it. But tape can easily be removed and redone,” says the 31-year-old whose studio’s white walls are filled with patterns made out of colourful tapes.
The secret to his skill, Sadhu says, is practice. While he initially picked up the basics by watching videos on YouTube, he got in touch with Dutch artist Max Zorn from whom he learnt more about this art form. Last August, when Sadhu was in Berlin for an artist residency program for a month, he collaborated with other layer tape artists from different part of the world.
When he’s not working with tape, he’s collecting it. Recently when he was in Germany, he found stores that exclusively house duct tapes. “I bought many tapes in different colours and sizes since I don’t get a wide variety here,” says Sadhu, who has around 500 rolls of duct tapes at his workshop.