Small is beautiful, they say. Pay a visit to artist Gattem Venkatesh and you cannot agree more to the good old saying. Be it toothpicks, broken bangles, onion peels or match sticks, this dexter carves something monumental from them.

At the age of 21, Mr. Venkatesh has more than 100 awards in his kitty, including the entries into the coveted Guinness Book of World Records and the Limca Book of Records.

Pursuing his childhood passion of doing something creative, he has churned out more than 400 art works with different materials.

I took a liking for painting when I was in 8th class. I picked up brushes and have never looked behind. Since then, I have switched over to many other art forms. But, miniature art is something I hold dearest, says Mr. Venkatesh, who received the Rashtriya Gourav Samman-2018 in the field of art, in New Delhi last month.

Hailing from an agricultural family of Chinadoddigallu in Visakhapatnam district, Mr. Venkatesh is now doing his B. Arch final year at Gitam Deemed to Be University. His father Suri Babu is a farmer while his mother Satyavathi is a homemaker.

Guinness record

Mr. Venkatesh made an entry to the Guinness Book of World Records last year.

His miniature replica of the Empire State Building which he made with toothpicks made its way into the Guinness Book as the ‘smallest toothpick sculpture’.

I had taken a single toothpick and sliced it into four vertical layers to make the 18 mm tall replica of Empire State Building, Mr. Venkatesh says.

Not only this, his miniature replica of Eiffel Tower was widely appreciated by art lovers.

It took me three-and-a-half hours to carve the miniature Eiffel Tower out of a pencil lead. I used a surgical blade to carve the lead of 4B and 2B pencils to make the 1.2 cm-tall and 4 mm-wide Eiffel Tower. I made a paper model of the tower too. It is 64 cm in height and 28 cm in width. The concept is more important than carving, he says.

He has a long list of his art works. Lord Balaji made up of 4,000 match sticks, sculptures on soaps, art works with broken bangles, onion peels, green building models with paper, miniature model of Petronas Towers with chalk piece, outline of India map with pencil lead, a 2 m X 2 m model of the Vizianagaram Fort with paper, foam board and waste materials, vintage car with paper are to name a few.

He had also prepared a model of Shilparamam (Amaravati project) as part of his project work for his B. Arch. programme.

He used foam board, match sticks, colour sheets and waste materials to design the administrative building, pond, stalls, internal and external roads.

I have set up Venky Art Organisation to teach various art forms to the children studying in government schools in rural areas. I teach them whenever I get free time. I want to nurture the hidden talents of the rural students, Mr. Venkatesh adds.