From the junkyard

Gurvinder Singh

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His eyes scan through the junkyard, searching for metal scraps. The deeper eye of his mind functions simultaneously that sees beyond and sees imaginatively. His vision gives a new, exalted life to those scrap pieces that are doomed to be junked. A man who resurrects the discarded to become the ‘regarded’ — he is Harminder Boparai.

With his penchant and passion for creating art that spell class and spring surprises, his talent has now been nationally recognised. Winning the Award of Excellence from Indian Akademi of Fine Arts, Amritsar(IAFA) last year and National Art Icon Award from Hammer Art Tag at All-India Fine Arts and Crafts Society the previous year, he has proven that the beauty is not just in the eyes of the beholder, but much in the hands of the creator. He was also adjudged winner at Delhi International Film Festival two year back.

By putting together metal scrap parts for his sculpture, he made roosters with the faces of bulls that won him the IAFA award. He ingeniously showed the emotion of anger and fight of animals. His signature stroke was in using some old scooter seats for depicting the faces of bulls, and old motorbike tanks to show the body of roosters.

His prowess comes from the power of grit that he was used to while growing up. Struck with paralysis at the age of 11, he not only fought the misfortune but overcame it. Hailing from Ghudani Kalan village in Ludhiana, the sculptor started off experimenting with m-seal, clay, plaster of paris, wood and other media, while learning from other artists. But it was in 2009, during his first solo show, appreciation poured in for his Dancing Girls created from used milk cans. This is when he realised his calling – the metal scrap sculpture.

Dream of the sculptor is as sublime. “I want to create an art museum of metal-scrap sculpture in Punjab. This would be tribute to Punjab as well art,” he says.