<div>St+Art Festival has kick-started and, among other locations, works of wall art are coming up along Church Street. At the Metro station entrance, across its three storeys, is a colourful painting of “children in their element, playing, enjoying themselves” as artist Harshvardhan Kadam puts it. It’s near completion and the Pune artist wants to take passers-by back to their childhood.<div><br /></div><div>“There’s so much sadness around, so when I got this opportunity, I thought, ‘Let me create something that will make people happy,” he says. “I want for people, if they’re feeling low, to be able to come here and feel better again.”</div><div><br /></div><div>He has read up on what colours make people happy. “Usually, street art is about anger. And, as much as I want people to feel happy, I also want this painting to exude a sense of calm and freedom,” he explains. “So you see a lot of ocean colours — blue, teal and the like.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Ask him what his happy colour is, and he laughs before replying, “Gold.” Harsh, whose stint with street art was inspired by the works he saw in Benares while on a sabbatical about four years ago, does a lot of paintings based on mythology. “Stories from it or inspired by it — I’ve done about a hundred murals in all. That’s sort of my language, my expression,” he says. “I’ve always been culturally rooted.”</div><div><br /></div><div>But he isn’t sure if golden will find a place in his Church Street painting. “I might put it in somewhere, or not,” he shrugs. Playful, or “not serious”, to use Harsh’s words, this work is certainly very busy. “That’s the thing about public art: even if someone has been coming to the same spot for years, they should be able to discover something new in it each time the pay a visit,” says Harsh.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although he had a plan before he put brush to wall, you find he constantly takes in suggestions given by the bunch of enthusiastic students from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology who are helping him out. “There’s a lot you can improvise on. For example, there’s a shoe here, which offers you endless possibilities. What you do with the design on the shoe also counts,” says the art and design graduate.</div><div><br /></div><div>Harsh is of the belief that a lot of thought should go into public art. “It could be time consuming, but this is a part of every discipline, so I think it’s important artists also follow it.” He started out a decade ago, working on comics and animation before he dabbled in the sphere of public art. He also signs his work as Inkbrushnme.</div></div>
<div>St+Art Festival has kick-started and, among other locations, works of wall art are coming up along Church Street. At the Metro station entrance, across its three storeys, is a colourful painting of “children in their element, playing, enjoying themselves” as artist Harshvardhan Kadam puts it. It’s near completion and the Pune artist wants to take passers-by back to their childhood.<div><br /></div><div>“There’s so much sadness around, so when I got this opportunity, I thought, ‘Let me create something that will make people happy,” he says. “I want for people, if they’re feeling low, to be able to come here and feel better again.”</div><div><br /></div><div>He has read up on what colours make people happy. “Usually, street art is about anger. And, as much as I want people to feel happy, I also want this painting to exude a sense of calm and freedom,” he explains. “So you see a lot of ocean colours — blue, teal and the like.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Ask him what his happy colour is, and he laughs before replying, “Gold.” Harsh, whose stint with street art was inspired by the works he saw in Benares while on a sabbatical about four years ago, does a lot of paintings based on mythology. “Stories from it or inspired by it — I’ve done about a hundred murals in all. That’s sort of my language, my expression,” he says. “I’ve always been culturally rooted.”</div><div><br /></div><div>But he isn’t sure if golden will find a place in his Church Street painting. “I might put it in somewhere, or not,” he shrugs. Playful, or “not serious”, to use Harsh’s words, this work is certainly very busy. “That’s the thing about public art: even if someone has been coming to the same spot for years, they should be able to discover something new in it each time the pay a visit,” says Harsh.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although he had a plan before he put brush to wall, you find he constantly takes in suggestions given by the bunch of enthusiastic students from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology who are helping him out. “There’s a lot you can improvise on. For example, there’s a shoe here, which offers you endless possibilities. What you do with the design on the shoe also counts,” says the art and design graduate.</div><div><br /></div><div>Harsh is of the belief that a lot of thought should go into public art. “It could be time consuming, but this is a part of every discipline, so I think it’s important artists also follow it.” He started out a decade ago, working on comics and animation before he dabbled in the sphere of public art. He also signs his work as Inkbrushnme.</div></div>
