Indian sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik has sculpted 100 Santa Claus figures on a beach in the tourist town of Puri.
The exhibition, which was opened by two foreign tourists last week, seeks to spread awareness about global warming.
Mr Patnaik has also sculpted Christmas trees with the message “Save the Earth from Global Warming”, to encourage people to give trees as gifts.
Hundreds of tourists and locals have been visiting the beach to see the unique display.
About 1,000 tonnes of sand and 36 hours of labour went into the creation of the sculpture.
Mr Patnaik was assisted by 20 students of the Golden Institute of Sand Art set up by him on Puri beach.
‘Humble effort’
“It is my humble effort to press home the dire need to go green to save the world from the menace of global warming,” Mr Patnaik told the BBC over telephone from Puri in eastern Orissa state.
Puri, 60km (37 miles) from the state capital, Bhubaneswar, is a major centre of Hindu pilgrimage and is the place where sand art originated in the 14th Century.
Around this time of year thousands of tourists from all over the world descend on Puri.
“That is what prompted me to think of this way of drawing attention to this global problem,” Mr Patnaik said.
The artist has won many prestigious global awards, including first prize in the world sand art championship in Germany earlier this year.
He won a place in the Limca Book of Records by creating the world’s tallest (25-foot) Santa Claus last year.
He has participated in nearly 40 international sand art championships and festivals.
Mr Patnaik has always chosen themes such as HIV-Aids, the bird flu outbreak in India, the tsunami disaster and conservation of the endangered Olive Ridley turtles.

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Who thought mundane things like a handful of mangoes, stainless steel utensils, cardboard boxes, wires, tables and chairs would fetch Subodh Gupta practically a cult status in the art fraternity, especially abroad? Subodh rapidly drew the attention of art lovers a few years ago when his “Saat Samundar Paar”
His “Line of Control”, consisting of Indian cooking utensils and a colossal mushroom cloud constructed entirely of pots and pans, was shown as part of the Tate Triennial at the Tate Britain gallery in London in October this year. His “Very Hungry God”, a skull made of stainless steel utensils, brought immense response from European countries. His obsession with shiny Indian cooking vessels spread like wildfire.

Currently, Subodh is participating in the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at Brisbane, besides lecturing in Hong Kong on his works.

Subodh’s works arouse curiosity regarding not only choice of medium but also the story behind them. The 42-year-old native of Mohalla Chhoti Badalpura, Patna, unravels the mystery behind his penchant for shiny utensils. “When I came to Delhi in 1991 to explore my horizon in art, I used to do my own cooking. The best ideas come while you are doing your regular chores at home. I wanted to do something different. Utensils became my medium and fortunately, they clicked too. Though an artist never chooses a medium to people’s liking, I was just too lucky to have hit their attention.” Youngest among three sisters and two brothers, Subodh lost his father when he was a child. Much later, Subodh left for Delhi searching for better prospects.

A sensitive soul, and himself a migrant, he felt the pain of migration and economic disparity. This found expression in creations like “Return Home” and “Across the Seven Seas” where he uses baggage trolleys of modern airports that allude to the grim historical reality of migration from India, especially his home State Bihar. The works attracted people from across the globe. Subodh’s videos and oil and acrylic paintings are also never free of nostalgia, with Indian streets and everyday objects as recurring symbols.

But now, his new works are becoming different. For instance, a three-dimensional reworking in bronze of Duchamp’s mustachioed Mona Lisa that is showing at Hauser & Wirth, U.K., hints at his association with European art. Agrees the artist, “Art is the same all over the world. Now I keep on thinking how to tell ‘my’ story in ‘their’ language.” His next work is a nine-foot tall Durga idol cast in bronze which he is going to showcase at a show in Ukraine. He explains, “We have a ‘parampara’ of making images. It is our ‘story’ and a part of ‘our’ culture. I am trying to tell this story through a language they understand.”

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