KOCHI: You will look twice at Akhil’s art. It may not pass off as a sketch at first glance, but rather a high-resolution photograph, etching even the minute of wrinkles to perfection. With its stark connect to realistic elements, his work may look more real than reality. Akhil’s art can put even the best of portrait photography to shame. The monochrome portraits he concocts with a pencil have an innate charm to them. Hyper-realism is Akhil Koothaduth’s forte, an art he learned by himself.
A design lead who works in Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram, Akhil was into art ever since he was young. But he never took it seriously, that was until a few years ago when he got hooked on to hyper-realistic works. He was stupefied by the immense depth and the scale of detailing involved in portraits. “I was following a lot of international artists and their work impressed me. It threw open a new world to me.
I was inspired. It amazed me that one could draw like this! And that is how I started,” says Akhil.
His first work was a portrait of actor Morgan Freeman. “His is an iconic face, where there is immense scope for detailing. It is also a very challenging face to recreate. Once I created the portrait, I was confident enough. Setting aside all the technicalities involved, what you need while doing the hyper-realistic painting is that you need a lot of patience,” says Akhil who works at Attinad Software.
For Akhil art is all about satisfying the self. “I think it is the same for every artist. You set a threshold of perfection before you start the work. You will keep pushing and perfecting until you reach there. And once you complete the work, it infuses in you a sense of satisfaction, happiness and confidence. On a personal level, it gives a lot of boost and conviction,” says Akhil.
For the past five years, Akhil has been exploring and experimenting with the hyper-realistic medium. “It is just that I never get enough time to create. Also, I am very particular about having the right state of mind while making a portrait. And lately, my patience level is also slumping,” he chuckles. Akhil next hopes to delve more into doing portraits in watercolour. “Watercolour is a medium with immense possibilities. I want to experiment with the medium next,” he says.