Mumbai’s art district, Kala Ghoda, boasts of some of the most well-known art galleries and museums that showcases the artworks of some of India’s best artists but it also makes place for the artist’s street. It has artists from all over the country sitting on a chair daily busy immortalising faces of people, families, lovers and friends
Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. Pic/Kala Ghoda
Key Highlights
- The street artists sit on chairs on the footpath between Kala Ghoda and CSMVS museum
- They create different kinds of artworks including scenery, portraits and live portraits
- The price of the paintings start from Rs 100 and are bought by locals and tourists
Different artworks in shades of blue, red, green and yellow adorn the makeshift display boards of the footpath between Rampart Row and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya gate. A cool winter breeze makes these artworks on paper flutter to create a kaleidoscope of artworks that manage to hold this writer’s gaze and that of every young and old passerby around him. Rakesh Sinha and Shailesh Kamble sit side-by-side on old metal chairs immersed in sketching portraits of orders they have received. They are only two of approximately 17 artists who have been making that footpath their street studio every day for the last 20-odd years. The street makes every Mumbaikar stop and admire the artworks that are a mix of sceneries, portraits of common people as well as celebrities, and other kinds of abstract work that are popular today.