{"id":2665,"date":"2014-03-09T23:12:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-09T22:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/?p=2665"},"modified":"2014-03-08T09:42:37","modified_gmt":"2014-03-08T08:42:37","slug":"chennais-walls-an-endless-canvas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/?p=2665","title":{"rendered":"Chennai’s Walls: an Endless Canvas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chennai is full of walls. \u00a0Many of them are marked “stick no bills” – and people will generally abide by that request. \u00a0But the majority end up being political advertising space.<\/p>\n

\"Walls\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The successive layers of paint upon paint, posters upon posters are accepted as a part of the texture of the city, and are rarely examined in close detail – though one of my predecessors here has photographed walls like the one below and turned it into a profitable art exhibition. Without all the stuff I’ve included in the photo for context.<\/p>\n

\"Sidewalk<\/a><\/p>\n

But on a major street in Chennai, the Stella Maris College Department of Fine Arts has turned a 250-meter stretch of wall surrounding their compound into a giant artists’ canvas. I spent a morning photographing them, and thought others might enjoy browsing some of the individual pieces. The project is called, “The Trees and the Skies”, and is accompanied by the following description:<\/p>\n

The concept is a metaphor to signify art that represents the rootedness of the trees and the open imagination of the skies. \u00a0The paintings envisage a change which can unite all people as we reassess the use of nature and our environment<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"DSC09580\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The gentleman sleeping on the sidewalk is not part of the exhibition – but is included for context!<\/p>\n

\"DSC09584\"<\/a> \"DSC09581\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It’s hard to see how much detail is in some of these pieces. \u00a0Check out this close-up from the painting above:<\/p>\n

\"DSC09582\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"DSC09579\"<\/a> \"DSC09577\"<\/a> \"DSC09576\"<\/a> \"DSC09574\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The previous painting is gloomy, but I like the caricature of the trucks we see all over town. \u00a0Here’s a close-up:<\/p>\n

\"DSC09575\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are more examples and more close-up detail shots. \u00a0These are a pleasure to drive past every morning. \u00a0I imagine what if all the walls were painted with art instead of political ads…<\/p>\n

\"DSC09573\"<\/a> \"DSC09572\"<\/a> \"DSC09571\"<\/a> \"DSC09570\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some jerk left his bike here. \u00a0Oh wait, that’s MY bike…<\/p>\n

\"DSC09569\"<\/a> \"DSC09568\"<\/a> \"DSC09567\"<\/a> \"DSC09566\"<\/a> \"DSC09565\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chennai is full of walls. \u00a0Many of them are marked “stick no bills” – and people will generally abide by that request. \u00a0But the majority end up being political advertising space. The successive layers of paint upon paint, posters upon posters are accepted as a part of the texture of the city, and are rarely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[942],"tags":[943,1261,1259,1260,1258],"class_list":["post-2665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-india","tag-chennai","tag-fine-art","tag-murals","tag-stella-maris-college","tag-wall-art"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2665"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2689,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2665\/revisions\/2689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}