KOZHIKODE: Mural artist Ajay K P and his friends have had a busy couple of weeks. The seven-member team from Kozhikode-Based Brandon Productions had taken up its largest work till date – painting the Milky Way, our galaxy, on a 5,000-sq ft wall at Vellar in Thiruvananthapuram.
The team comprising Ajay, T S Ranjith, V C Vivek, Pradhish Raj, Thushara Balakrishnan, Ajith Rangan, Shivankutty, and Milan were given two weeks to complete the ‘Art Wall’ commissioned as part of the Global Science Festival Kerala (GSFK) scheduled to be held in Thiruvananthapuram in December. However, the artists exceeded expectations – their own as well as those of Amuseum ArtScience which hired them – and finished the mural in 11 days!
The 25-ft tall canvas depicts the space and the solar system. “Painting public murals are nothing like working on a canvas. It’s very hard to predict the final outcome,” said Ajay, the team coordinator. It took the artists one week to zero in on an idea and ready a digital copy of the plan. “On day one, we used a projector and sketched a few pictures on the wall.
Since the wall comes under the NH flyover, we couldn’t use a crane due to heavy traffic. So, we used scaffolding. It was scary to work at a height of 25ft at first. Later, we got used to it,” said Ajay The team initially planned working at nights and felt it could finish everything in eight days, said Ranjith. “However, it started raining, and we had to split the work in two shifts to avoid the downpour.
The early morning shift would start at 3am and finish by 10am before it got too hot. The evening shift would be from 4pm to 10pm,” he said. “Since we were working in shifts, it became tough to maintain our daily routine. Often, we would eat just once a day and sleep during our free time, he said.
The team feels art works, especially paintings are always reserved for the enjoyment of a certain section of society, and commoners never go to an art gallery to enjoy a masterpiece. “Our aim is to bring art to the public. When we draw a public mural, every single person passing by can take in its beauty.
We want art to be part of theives,” said Ajay. Photos and videos of the work are now trending on social media. Wall paintings and spray paintings were once considered illegal. Now, people have started accepting public murals as art rather than vandalism.
Mumbai and Chennai have public murals at several places. In Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram is the hub for such murals. Brandon Productions itself has painted a public mural in Attingal, based on the Anchuthengu revolt.