An Indian shopkeeper in Dammam has made a collage portrait of King Abdullah, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, out of glossy paper collected from old magazines. The portrait is so unique that it looks like an oil painting. A Saudi businessman was so fascinated with the collage work that he offered to buy it. “I refused to sell it despite the tempting offer of SR60,000,” said Ajay Kumar, who is hoping that someday he would be given a chance to present the collage to the King. “My dream is to present it to the King myself, but I am not sure whether that will be possible,” he told Saudi Gazette as he attended his shop selling assorted personal clothing and home décor items. “I am impressed and inspired by the generosity shown by the Saudi monarch to all his subjects, as well as to the expatriates living here. I thought of creating a very unique memento to the King of Hearts as a token of thanks and appreciation not just from me but from the entire expat communities who so very much depend on the Kingdom to support their families back home,” said Kumar. The portrait is 1.15 meter high and one meter wide. Kumar spent several months, working during his spare time, to finish the collage. “People came and visited me just to see how I was progressing on the project,” he said. Kumar has completed a three-year course in arts from India and has worked for a German company as an artist. When he came to Saudi Arabia about a year ago, he decided to dedicate his free time to collage art. “It's amazing what one can do with waste papers. It is a good medium for art work and people with some knowledge of painting can easily experiment collage work with waste papers,” he said. __
