KOCHI: Suraj Kumar creates entire worlds inside eggshells. If you peek through the little hole he has made outside the fragile shell, you can catch a glimpse of Van Gogh’s paintings, like ‘Sunflower,’ beautiful landscapes, portraits of freedom fighters, and celebrities. His mini-acrylic detailing is of a kind. The artist has been unleashing his creativity inside the eggs since he was 14 years old.
Canvas or paper has never tempted Suraj. Walls of his house, which he painted with images of deities so his mother wouldn’t scold him, a grain of rice - his preferred mediums are rather unconventional. “When I was young, I used to flip through pages of Readers Digest to see the picture. Once, I came across a spread where there was a picture of an egg on one side, and that of an Arab leader on the other. I remember thinking the Sheikh’s image was inside the egg. It was a random thought, and I left it there,” recalls Suraj.
Suraj is quite the curious cat, and that keeps things interesting for him. Once, he attempted to break a single mustard seed into 200 pieces, inspired by his neighbour who made it to the news doing it. “I tried doing the same for a maths exhibition in my school. That also garnered media attention, and I became quite famous in my area. It made me really excited, getting acceptance and recognition at such a young age. I needed something else to do, and that is when the idea to paint inside an egg came back to me,” says Suraj, who works as an art assistant in movies.
After several trials and errors over three years, Suraj was able to ‘crack’ the egg problem. “I didn’t even know if it was possible. I searched for references, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find any. I hope to come across someone else who has attempted it so I can learn about different methods,” he adds. He inserts a steel rod carefully into the eggshell to create a 2.5mm radius sized hole. “To get the hole right is a tedious task by itself. The shell breaks most times,” he adds.
Using a syringe, he then extracts the white and yolk of the egg. After washing the insides properly, he dries the egg. Then, using a ‘brush’ made out of eerkili (coconut frond spine) Suraj paints the inside.
“I tried many mediums to make a brush that could reach the inside of the shell without breaking it before finally deciding on this,” says Suraj. At first, he draws a layout by creating dots and eventually attaches them to form the image. When placed near the eye, one will be able to see the image clearly, and a mobile camera can also capture the same. He has created artworks inside 75 eggs and has attempted in 200.
To make a single piece, Suraj spends around seven hours on an egg. “It takes a great amount of effort and patience. There have been several instances where the shell breaks while I am halfway through the painting process. Sometimes it breaks when I take it out to get a final look,” he adds.
Nonetheless, Suraj is driven to do more stunning artworks. “I am creating a world inside an egg, and I am happy to belong there,” he adds. But it does hurt Suraj how lightly some people take his effort. “During exhibitions, people have broken the shell to see if the art is really inside,” he says. Suraj has a spot in Universal Records Forum and Arabian World Records to his name. The youngster aims to bag Guinness World Records too for egg art.