Kanth Risa was keen on setting a Guinness Record for portrait sketching in 30 seconds till he came across sand animation two years ago over YouTube. Since then, there has been no looking back for this artist from Achampet in Mahabubnagar who has shared stage with maestros such as Hari Prasad Chaurasia, blending his sand art with dance and music.

Risa, his original name being Rajnikanth, has designed sand animation presentations for Aditya Birla, Nagarjuna Construction Company, ISB, ONGC, Infosys and more. His recent work during the film promo for Prasad Productions   Rushi  was critically acclaimed where he presented the biography of the doyen of Indian cinema through sand animation. His USP lies in sketching portraits using sand dust.

Risa prefers to call it  dust art  and prefers roadside earth to come up with spectacular shapes that morph every second over the illuminated fibre glass.  Even with bad quality sand you tend to get the best light and shadow play,  he says watching his work being projected on a 50 ft. screen to an awestruck audience.

 I approached event managers with the concept and they rubbished it. I then involved sand art in a dance recital to present  Dashavataram . Sand animation is not big in India as an art form. But, there is a great demand from the corporate world to present story-boards in this medium. Like a good narrative, each presentation has a concept backed by storytelling through morphing forms, he says. He is also working on a script for a film that will feature sand animation and a new series for the canvas as well.

There are more projects in the weeks ahead for Risa. A JNTU dropout, he was pleasantly surprised when he recently received communication from the varsity to present its history through the medium of sand animation.

Coming June and he will by flying to Bangkok for the World HR Congress.  One has to see art in sand, that s the bottom line. It s not different from sketching on a paper. There might be more mediums to come such as salt,  he reflects.