Browsing Instagram, we love lingering on the time lapse art videos which showcase detail and skill. Now artists in Hyderabad are grabbing attention similarly with their own work and Uday Kumar Sangisetti is one of them. When he moved to Hyderabad from a small village in Khammam district, he never thought he’d end up breaking records in the art world.
Humble beginnings
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As a 20-year-old, when Uday moved to the city for his studies, he often found himself frequenting bio-spaces; a visit to NTR Gardens led him to someone making small amounts of money doing portraits of people. Piqued, he went back home and started practising drawing. The following projects saw friends’ birthdays featuring portraits he’d done himself which naturally progressed to carving of pencil tips —with a knife — into letters for a more personalised purchase. “My first attempt was the letter P using a knife,” he recalls, “and that’s how I progressed from there.”
Uday acknowledges that practise and self-training are what brought him to this point where people in the city instantly know his work that’s often racking up likes and shares on social media. He’s developed an admirable skill set and uses a range of surgical tools for precision to nail the right amount of pressure so his projects stay intact.
“It’s been three and a half years since starting micro-artistry,” he says, “so daily practice is the key — I don’t even use a magnifying glass. “I did Eiffel Tower but that broke a couple of times at the finishing stage,” he recalls, “so not all my projects go as planned the first time. I’m a techie for an MNC at the moment, but it’s good to have this creative side too.”
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Uday also takes frequent orders from people who want to give unique gifts to their friends which they’re bound to keep for a lifetime, and he’s upped his game by framing a lot of the carvings, making them Pinterest-ready.
Making moves
Scrolling through Uday’s Instagram, you’ll find a number of close-up shots of various projects lying about in a mess of pencil sharpenings and lead shavings: names of people he’s carved, celebrities such as Michael Jackson, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi, and even eye-catching shapes such as India and a heart with a pulse line. For International Women’s Day this year, Uday also did a Venus symbol. He adds that he picks the famous figures based on how much they inspire him in his day-to-day life.
“I’d really like to gift the Mahatma Gandhi one which I completed two years ago to KCR,” he explains, “So I’ve been trying to reach out to his team.”
Such a journey also brought Uday into the HydInstaMeet family where he showcased his work for the first time in his life at the InstaArt Unconference in late February this year. He met another microartist, Dheeraj Kholla, who frequents HydInstaMeet. Through word of mouth and networking, word about Uday’s work bubbled to the surface gaining him social media popularity too, especially for his unique art style. As a result, a community within micro-artistry culminated and now Uday finds himself occasionally training people who want to hop on the bandwagon.
Another even more motivating milestone is Uday’s accolade in January where he was awarded a Vajra World Record for carving a new record name in 0.7mm lead which is no small feat — no pun intended. “I can do any name, averaging from eight to ten letters, in just ten minutes. I’m currently working on doing the whole alphabet in 30 minutes; there hasn’t been a record set for that.”
Something he reiterates to count his blessings is “Before coming to Hyderabad, I was just Uday Kumar Sangisetti. Now I’m Uday Microartist thanks to Hyderabad,” as he chuckles sheepishly when he thinks about the countless number of pencils he currently has lying about at home.
Check out Uday’s Facebook pageas well as his Instagram.