Collage creations amaze visitors

Jamshedpur, May 27: Cartooning for his office magazine and a nine-to-five job at the Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company (Jusco) keeps him busy through the day.

But his love for tatters and the urge to create an extraordinary piece of art from the pages of a magazine has given Jitendra Urma his identity and popularity.

A resident of Kadma in Jamshedpur, Urma today is one of the well-known collage artists in the city. A graduate in fine arts from the Jamshedpur School of Art, Urma is perhaps the only collage artist who does not use any outside medium other than paper to create the beautiful pieces.

From an ornate temple scene to a newly-wed gazing at the mirror, each of Urma’s exquisite art work uses small pieces of paper cut out from magazines and newspapers.

“The day anybody proves I have used anything other than paper for my work, I will give away my work for free,” said the artist during a summer camp for artists that concluded at the city today.

Called Colours-2007, this was the second annual homecoming of over 40 artists from in and around the steel city.

Amid the colourful paintings and canvasses, the one that drew attention was a lady in red looking passionately at the mirror. “It took me four days to give shape to that perfect figure. Since I do not use any outside medium, it becomes very difficult to get hold of all that we require at one go. A lot of magazines have to be looked through,” added Urma.

Another artist, Himanshu Mandal, revealed that his collages are created from pieces of torn clothes, strings and papers. Krishna Mahto also drew attention through his clay Ganesha and P. Biswas amazed the visitors with Michael Angelo’s David recreated on terracotta.

Other interesting work included a mount art work by Naveena Singh, an extraordinary depiction of mother and child by leading city artist L.I. Singh and some beautiful paintings done by school students even at the school level.

“The camp this year has been a great success,” said P. Biswas, a senior faculty member at the School of Art.

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