Street Art of Matheran

Matheran was one of the last places places where I expected to see Street Art, so I was in a pleasant surprise when I visited the town recently. I have always enjoyed street art in any part of the world, but when you see it cropping up in such an unexpected place, the joy is even more. Earlier this year also, I discovered some street art in my city Pune, and much of it was pure luck and patience. Read more: Street Art at Kasba Peth, Pune

Matheran literally means 'Forest on the Forehead' and is the only vehicle-free hill station in Asia, which makes the place extremely environment friendly. It also makes a trip to the hill station quite healthy for travelers, as you are forced to walk if you want to do anything, unless you opt for horses which I do not quite recommend. Also, it's only when you walk slowly, and observe life around that you discover some of the hidden wonders of the place. In case of Matheran, I discovered this beautiful street art due to slow walking.

I love this - two connected heads with connect4ed thoughts!

The Pune connection - Harshvardhan Kadam

Art cropped up in Matheran in May this year as part of Matheran Green Festival which inaugurated on the 165th Foundation Day of Matheran, 21st May 2015. Artists from all walks of life as well as from across the world came in for this festival and it received wide media coverage. One of those artists was also Harshvardhan Kadam from Pune who has already made a huge name for himself in the art movement in the country . Sukant, the organiser of the event, invited Harsha and he, along with 4-5 more artists from the city transformed Matheran over the next week or so.

Read more about Harshvardhan Kadam here

As per Harsha, the primary theme of the festival as well as street art was to make the locals aware of the environment. From an environment friendly hill station in the past, the face of town has slowly changed now - so much that some places even have air conditioning. The festival tried to help the locals understand and appreciate the different facets of the environment better. This was done through a series of workshops, performances, art creation and so on.

Street Art is highly driven by the context in which it is created. For instance, in case of Pune the vibe was different and the artwork here celebrates life in all its vibrant colors. However, Matheran was different as it was a green hill-station. The context decided the art as well as the colors uses - the work done by him was primarily brown and white. The key intent was not to break the harmony of the space.

Another artist from Pune who did the recce before the festival and also created some art there is Nilesh. Earlier a lecturer at an art college in Pune, he joined the Pune Street Art initiative once he left college and has been painting streets ever since. He has also painted streets in Mumbai and a few other places. 

There were a few more artists as well, including one from Mumbai and another one from Germany. It's interesting to see all different styles merging so beautifully with each other as well as the environment where they exist.

Now three months after the festival, the art has taken another, more beautiful form. In this part of the country, monsoons can turn anything into something beautiful. In case of these beautiful pieces of street art, their beauty was only exemplified by rains. Somehow rains claimed art and made it, it's own.

How to explore street art in Matheran?

So how do you go about discovering art in Matheran? Well, its rather simple actually - walk! Some of the art can be seen on the main street, for other art pieces you might have to walk in to side lanes and for some other you might even have to ask the locals. Trust me, this is super fun...you will love both the sudden discovery as well as hunting down some of the more elusive pieces as well.

I am not an artist, but I love art, especially street art. I recently enjoyed discovering some art in my city Pune (read more), and I can tell you one thing for sure - it's addictive! Fortunately for Pune, I knew about the Street Art project and also about some of the specific art pieces and artists, so it was even more fun. For Matheran, I do not know as much, but I loved it still and hope you do as well :)

The first few images in the series are black and white with red used as accent colors. I am not sure if this was intentional, but in my mind I saw these rather innovative and more challenging as communication media.

An old man - also my fav!

Looks like a scene from the party...I could be totally wrong :)

Can't guess...any thoughts?

Maybe a horse!

Here are the some of the more colorful art pieces. Note how nature has also added its own colors to some of these and how that makes them even more beautiful. To me the rough texture of the walls also add another dimension of beauty to these and makes the art pop and interact even more with the viewer.

Enjoy!

Horse again

Very smartly done on the electricity box

Cleaning up?

I quit like this style...

Another communicative one...

This is how I realised that Harshvardhan was part of this initiative :)

Vibrancy of colors!

Riding a horse - quite typical of Matheran

The cool man - love how it's integrated with roots of the tree :)