A&R Designers has been around for four years now providing services in airbrushing vehicles, portrait drawings, mural paintings and tattooing. However, it was not as well-known as it is now that it has people talking about the Bumblebee Transformer it recently airbrushed onto a minibus.
The business is owned by Chan Jairam, who operates at Nonpareil, East Coast Demerara. By no means a conventional artist, he started out doing tattoos and a year later, began providing airbrushing as a service.
His most recent feat has seen many call his work “amazing”. The bus in question it was said took three weeks to complete. “From that post, a lot of people add me on Face-book. A lot of people ask about my work,” Jairam said.
Having always had a knack for art, following the completion of his formal education at Annandale Secondary School, Jairam did a certificate course at E R Burrowes School of Art. The father of one shared that he was hanging out at auto body workshops when he realized that this was a business he could get into and began making moves to do so.
Jairam required a loan to get the tools for airbrushing as they are expensive. He has since repaid this loan and was able to purchase better equipment for the job from the profit he made. For the first year, business was slow and most of the work he did was for friends and family but then word started to get around and his clientele grew.
The pandemic, Jairam said, really affected his business as people put a hold on spending until they were sure what was happening. However, since the start of this year, things seem to be looking up.
The 24-year-old shared that the service he provides does not take much effort as he loves what he does. Referring to the much-talked-about ‘transformer’ airbrushing, he said a lot of people were shocked and surprised. The owner of the bus, he said, “…didn’t regret it. He was really amazed about it. It was really time consuming. I worked on it during the day, during the night, just adding colour over colour to give it that pop.
“I would normally research my ideas from the internet. [In the case] of the Bumblebee bus, I downloaded more than one picture and I would use one idea from one picture, another idea from another picture until I figured out how it will all come together. I don’t look to copy anybody’s airbrushing ideas.”
Jairam shared that a lot of persons often tell him that he must be happy being his own boss, but he further explained that while it is nice to be your own boss, to have a successful business, you need to be disciplined. According to the businessman, there are many nights when he cannot get a full night’s sleep because he has work to get done. He added that some days, his schedule is so tight, that he misses breakfast and lunch and does not get to sit down to dinner until way past dinnertime. There are times when he has several customers at once. The first part of his job is talking with his clients and getting all the details as to what they really want until he has a fair idea of the expected job. “But I like what I do so I continue to aim for the best,” he said.
There are times when clients turn up with photos of what they want but are unable to meet the price for such a project. Sometimes, Jairam gives them a discount if he is able to do so. Other times he has to explain to them that he is unable to provide the work for the money they are able to pay and in such cases he spends time showing them some other amazing designs, he can still do for them with the money they have.
However, not all clients are unable to pay the price, Jairam said. There are some who can afford it but want to decide what they should pay. These are persons who do not know the value of art. In some instances, he has had some of these very persons look on while he worked on other vehicles. This allows them to see the effort and skill it takes to do what he does and in understanding this, they are willing to pay the asking price.
Asked whether he knew anyone who comes close to doing the kind of work he does, Jairam said humbly, “I don’t like to boast… about my business. That’s for my customers to know. I let them [determine] whether my work is good or not.”
Jairam also does signage and banners as well as airbrushing on other objects, from as small as a phone case to t-shirts, sneakers, and bicycles. Aside from airbrushing, he recently did a mural of clouds in the sky on the ceiling of a client’s home as well as a painting of Kaieteur Falls on the wall of another client’s home. Along with that, as aforementioned, the artist also does portraits in a black and white using either black acrylic paint, charcoal or pencil.
It will be a while before he can expand his business as he wants but in the meantime, he is saving to make this possible. Jairam also hopes to through his business provide jobs for persons in need.
He can be contacted through his business’s Facebook page at A&R Designers or at 657-1217. A&R Designs is open every day from 8 am to 5 pm, except Wednesdays.
