35: Tea Time!

35
Originally uploaded by Mithun Jayaram

Recently I did a brief post on coffee art... but this is something else! I would like to share with you the work of a very talented young Indian artist, who I discovered recently online, by the name of Mithun Jayaram, and here he has "an experiment playing with the possibilities of recycling used tea leaves and powder as a collaborative effort with Infinitea, Bangalore". He says:

"Though my main interest was to observe decay, the dried used tea leaves that showed no sign of fungus nor insects were organized and framed to make works that now adorn the Cunningham Road (Bangalore) tea restaurant, Infinitea."

I am blown away by his 2&3D creations. They are elegant and ingenious, and although they often feature man-made items, such as pencils, pencil shavings, erasers, Post-it notes, etc., they seem to me to nearly always be in step with nature somehow.

His work was recently featured on the site masala chai, a "visual arts blog that features South Asian Art & Design" which more than demonstrates that Asia continues to further it's historical excellence in the field of art and creativity. This site is also where I first came across Namrata Narula (there's a link to her work here in the right-hand column) and her delicious apparel. I love that both Namrata and Mithun - and I'm delighted to be finding others like them - are making refreshing strides forward when it comes to incorporating recycled and upcycled materials into the art form.