Telangana: Leaf Art brings fame to Shiva Kumar

Sangareddy: Proving that art has no boundaries, a painter has attempted and mastered the Leaf Art in less than a year. Gundu Shiva Kumar (28) of Anantha Sagar of Narayankhed Mandal is actually a painter. Shiva Kumar had developed a keen interest in painting since childhood. Kumar found good motivation from his teacher Narasimha Chary […]

Sangareddy: Proving that art has no boundaries, a painter has attempted and mastered the Leaf Art in less than a year. Gundu Shiva Kumar (28) of Anantha Sagar of Narayankhed Mandal is actually a painter. Shiva Kumar had developed a keen interest in painting since childhood. Kumar found good motivation from his teacher Narasimha Chary at Saraswathi Sishu Mandir in Narayankhed. While he was just studying IXth Class, his teacher had sent him to train the students and teachers of Sishu Mandir schools in painting in the summer camps. Continuing his passion for learning new forms of art, Shiva Kumar found leaf art quite interesting.

After watching the artists in a video, he learned the Leaf art on his own. Since then, he shot to fame by carving portraits of several famous personalities such as President of India Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, Ministers KT Rama Rao, Harish Rao, and many others. He will just wake up to check the internet about whose birthday or any special day in a famous personality’s life. He will visit a nearby sacred fig tree to harvest a leaf from it. Kumar will take 15 minutes to one and half hours to carve a picture. After seeing his impressive work on social networking sites, several people were approaching him requesting him to get the portraits of their loved ones carved on a leaf which they would present on their birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and other special days.

After drawing the picture, he will laminate the leaf in a glass frame to make it a memorable gift. Apart from the sacred pig tree leaf, he had also tried to carve pictures on toddy palm tree leaves and other tree leaves, but they were not surviving too long. Kumar is also known for carving portriats on dry fruits, seeds, and others. Recently, he organised a one-day exhibition in Narayankhed to spread awareness of Art. He drew the portraits of as many as 50 persons, who visited the exhibition, in one day and presented the artwork to them. Shiva Kumar is also well-known on social networking sites such as Youtube,
Instagram and others. Many students from across India were learning the art by following his videos. He would also deliver some tutorials to teach the art to the younger generation.

To enhance his knowledge in art further, Shiva Kumar completed in Bachelor of Fine Arts from Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University (JNAFU). Currently, he is a student of MFA at the same college.