Meet the Hyderabadi dentist-turned-artist specialising in ‘pointillism’

For Dr Shruti Sakaray, it was her sciences-studies that kindled her passion in arts and she now is an artist, specialising in pointillism

Hyderabad: People in India first study sciences and then pursue their art-forms later is a major cliche. However, for Dr Shruti Sakaray, a city-based dentist, it was her sciences-studies that kindled her passion in arts and she now is an artist, specialising in pointillism.

“As a biology student and later a dental student, I had to do a lot of diagrams and that triggered my interest in art. My diagrams in school and college were always used as examples in other classes and it always gave me a high,” said Shruti. “However, I never got time to pursue it in college and ironically, when I was in my fourth-year, with all the exams and increased patient quotas, etc, I got time to get into art,” she added.

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Having started off with pencil sketches, with her toddler-nephew as her first muse, she started getting more requests from people to do portraits of their children as she started posting her works on social media. “As I started doing portraits, I felt the need to do something beyond usual charcoal/pencil sketches and I came across pointillism,” Shruti said.

She was instantly attracted towards the art form as it is as intricate and detailed as her profession is and there is just as little room for error in both. “As a dentist, I have very little room for mistakes as we deal with very limited space and small tissues and just the same way, if I put one dot in the wrong place, the whole work of art is ruined,” the 25-year-old shared.

Her training as a dentist, which required her to develop an expert level of steadiness in hands, also helped her in this art-form as is required by it. “Just the way I can’t let my hand shake even the tiniest bit while I am doing a root-canal or even something as minor as scaling, I have to maintain a steadiness when I do pointillism,” she said.

Shruti finds it interesting and challenging as it requires a completely different mindset in comparison to painting or sketching, and said, “When you sketch or paint, there are strokes but for a single strand of hair in a pointillist portrait, you need to painstakingly and patiently put hundreds of dots. It gets even more challenging when you do it with colours as sometimes you have to change the pen for every dot, based on the skin tone differences, lights and shadows, etc.”

She added, “I get into a zone of sorts when I start a project, as I need a high level of concentration to do it. Now, after two years of doing it, an average A4 portrait takes me 10-12 hours of focused work.”

What is Pointillism?

Pointillism is an art form where small, distinct dots are applied in patterns onto the paper/canvas to make up an image. It was developed and branched from Impressionism in the late 1800s.

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