 When
it comes to art, patience is the artist's watchword. And dot art calls
for a triple fold dose of patience. Ask Mohan Vernekar, the
city's renowned dot artist. His compilation of dot portraits of Kannada
literary scholars reveals his talent and keen power of observation.
These litterateurs include Jnanapeetha awardees, Kendra Sahitya Academy
award winners, Pampa and Attimabbe award winners and other highly
acclaimed writers and critics.
Vernekar's romance with dot portraiture began around twenty-five years
ago, in March 1974. Senior scholar Maasti Venkatesha Iyengar,
seeing his own portrait done in dots, complimented Mohan's skills
and said, "Your work remains incomplete by portraying me alone;
there are many other litterateurs in Kannada whom you have to consider."
Since then, Mohan has tried to capture many of the literary giants
and ultimately succeeded in coming out with a book of all those portraits
on October 24, 1999.
Why only dot portraits? He answers modestly, "I was fascinated
when I identified millions of dots knit into an image when I observed
it through a lens. That got me into working on dots in pen to create
an image that looked natural. I could come out with portraits that
have the natural appearance of a photograph only after a lot of experiments."
"There was also a need for portraits of some senior Kannada
litterateurs whose photos were not available through any source, including
the Kannada Sahitya Parishat. As an ardent admirer of those literary
scholars, I thought of fulfilling my dream of compiling the dot portrait
book 'Shata Saahitya Prathibhe' (One hundred literary talents)
with a profile of each of them."
Mohan Vernekar received financial assistance from New York's Kannada
Sahithya Koota and Infosys Foundation to bring out his
book at Rs 200 per copy, a price that is affordable to the common
man. Vernekar is also grateful to
Prof L S Sheshagiri Rao and Vyasaraya Ballal who helped him in getting
the profile of the litterateurs.
Recalling his efforts in bringing out the book, Vernekar says, "It
was a Herculean task that took more than a year. I feel really contended.
It is the culmination of twenty-five years of hard work. Each portrait
required 18 to 20 hours to complete. I dedicated my free hours after
office work for that."
Dot portrait has been a passion for Vernekar, who is an official reporter
for the Karnataka legislative Assembly. This dot artist is a writer
too! Though writing short stories is what he enjoys most (having three
story collections to his credit), he has also published four novels.
Another area of interest is children's literature. He has penned many
poems and stories for children. Looks like there are no full stops
in Mohan Vernekar's life.
For more details on the book, contact:
Kavya Sindhu Prakashana,
# 615, 68 Cross, First Stage,
Kumaraswamy Extension,
Bangalore- 560 078.
Phone: 2666 5151
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