lodhi art district’s 16 most dazzling street art paintings

Posted on December 19, 2022 by Rama Arya

What happens when a sedate neighbourhood for government employees comes face-to-face with passionate street artists from across the world—Lodhi Art District happens. 😊

A leafy residential area dating back to Edwin Lutyens’ 1940s New Delhi, Lodhi Colony is characterised by wide streets and housing blocks encased in lofty colonial arches and vast facades. Unlike most of Delhi, it is relatively traffic-free—the perfect setting for an open-air art gallery, is what St+art India Foundation figured in 2015.

And so, over the years, street artists from across the world and India, were invited to transform its faded vanilla walls into riots of colour. At times the art was loaded with thought-provoking messaging, and at others about the simple truths of life. But always, magnificent in their aesthetic beauty.

There are some 60 street art works scattered over the neighbourhood, as of December 2022. You would need a whole day to see them all. Of these, 16 are drop-dead dazzling, and my absolute favourites!

I have included a link to a google map prepared by St+art at the end of this post to help you locate these paintings, along with a link to their official [free] audio guide available on HopOn India.

Here they are, the best of Lodhi Art District’s lot. Be prepared to be bowled over. ❤ Continue reading →

art focus – street art and dharavi

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Rama Arya

“Bhaiya, Dharavi chaloge?” (Will you go to Dharavi?)

After being turned down twice, a rickshaw finally agrees to take me on the condition, “I will drop you off at the main road. I won’t get a return passenger from there… You will have to walk to 60 Feet Road by yourself.”

Dharavi is not the usual jaunt or destination for a Mumbaikar, least of all a Hindi speaking woman on her own who quite clearly does not have a clue about the ground realities of the place itself! All I know is some statistics, historical details and that the main road is the 90 Feet Road, and perpendicular to it is the 60 Feet Road which I want to explore for its street art. But more on the art later in the post. 🙂 Continue reading →

art focus – curated bandra street art walk – st+art mumbai

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Rama Arya

If Bandra’s charm could be codified, I guess this would be it. Cats and silver leaves—collaborative mural by Anpu Varkey (India) and Tika (Switzerland).

So what happens when 20 internationally renowned street artists from all over the world, and two passionate people from Delhi get together and decide to bring the power of art as a medium of creative expression to the streets of India, free and accessible to all? St+art happens.

From the 7th to the 30th, this November, over 30 murals in Mumbai transformed, otherwise drab edifices, into vibrant thought-provoking compositions. Luckily for me, a bulk of them were painted in Bandra, my home in this city. 🙂 Continue reading →