The Medium of Sand

How often have you heard that phrase: “…the white sandy beaches” or “…the pearly white sand” when it comes to Maldivian tourism advertisements? Well, I can bet your bottom dollar that you must have heard them so often that it is now finely drilled into the brain. Anyway, I am about to bring up the same element again –Though, I am not about to prove how white the beaches of Maldives are. Have you ever heard of ‘Sand art’? Yes, that is my topic for this post. 😉 Today, artists don’t exactly restrict their mediums to oils and water colours instead there’s a variety of mediums for the modern artist and it is endless (they even use toilet paper and cow dung!!)  But no worries, sand art does not require smelly or sticky work, instead all the artist needs is a thin layer of fine sand and a light table to create amazing paintings that metamorphose into several artistic sceneries. Art has taken its many forms throughout the years and now it’s about experimenting on the wildest. Though, sand art can still be considered as an amateur form compared to the most bizarre– it too has its beauty when performed by a skilled artist.  A video of Kseniya Simonova’s winning sand art performance at a Ukrainian talent show is the talk of many sites, channels and YouTube now. Her one is more of a story teller than art; portraying a story at the time of WW2, with music at the background and lit candles on the stage creating an atmosphere that brought most of the female audience to tears. I however, love the sand art performances that present fantasy portrayals, with images that are reminiscent of dreams.

(So the ‘white sand’ of Maldives does come in handy after all eh?)  ;P

Some videos of sand art performances  🙂 Enjoy

I’m sure most of you would have seen on telly the sand art work for the animal planet

sand artist Robert Schinkel gives some amazing performances in this one

a japanese art

Kseniya Simonova’s moving presentation at the Ukraine talent show