Riot of Colours and Imagery on Streets Turns B’luru Into Artwork

A street art festival to depict the narrative of old and new Bengaluru on city walls.

The festival is an initiative by St+ Art India Foundation of Delhi and supported by Asian Paints. (Photo Courtesy: Aravani Foundation Facebook Page )

In the beginning of October, the St+art Festival came to Bengaluru with 16 artists from India and abroad. Quite a few landmarks in the city turned into their canvases, drawing on the multiple narratives the city has to offer. Now that the work has almost finished, and the imagery has acquired the shapes of paintings, murals, wall art, we bring to you the stories within and behind the art.

The most familiar of them all is Priya’s Shakti, the rape survivor and emancipator of women. On a wall on Church Street in Bengaluru, Dan Goldman and Ram Devineni’s Priya (the protagonist of artist’s comic series on rape survivors ) fights for an equal and just society.

They use a mirror as a reflective weapon instead of traditional armament that draws blood.  Priya’s mirror aims to show patriarchy it’s most brutal and discriminatory reflection. (Photo Courtesy: St-art Foundation)

Mumbai-based Harshvardhan Kadam has painted the largest work of his career at MG Road Metro Station. The walls of the station depict the story of five kids. The idea is to reflect the energy of MG Road the iconic heartland of Bengaluru. (Photo Courtesy: St-art Foundation)

Artist Ullas Hydoor has recreated an old map of Bengaluru with city’s founder Kempegowda’s face on it. “It is about where we were and where we are headed to”, says Ullas Hydoor. The artwork is close to a bridge, which means every time a train passes by, people engage with his work. (Photo Courtesy: St-art Foundation)

Local artist Appupen chose to paint B’luru’s history at Kempegowda Metro Station. Nobody knows how Kempegowda looks like so he referred to myths & stories associated with him and the area. (Photo Courtesy: St-art Foundation)

Kempegowda Metro Station was once Dharmabuddhi Lake called ‘jeeva kere’ (lifeline of the city). Then it was a political space for rallies – Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru gave a speech here in 1931. The area is now a transport hub and Appupen’s work is a blend of this imagery on a number of pillars inside the station. (Photo Courtesy: St-art Foundation)

Poornima Sukumar decided to engage with the issues of transgenders. She has painted a gigantic face which represents both a man and a woman, accompanied with text Naanu Iddivi – we exist. (Photo Courtesy: St-art Foundation)

“We are all assigned a gender at birth. Sometimes that assignment doesn’t match our inner truth, and there needs to be a new place – a place for self-identification,” is the message Poornima’s art work conveys. (Photo Courtesy: St-art Foundation)

The festival is an initiative by St+ Art India Foundation of Delhi and supported by Asian Paints that has provided the colours for all the art works.