Sree Sankaracharya alumni’s campus wall art spread cheer

The walls of

Sree Sankaracharya

University of Sanskrit, Kalady, have been increasingly wearing some vibrant colours, of late.

Art works have taken shape on 4500 sq feet of walls, spread across various buildings in the campus, through the brush strokes of eight of its alumni, who call themselves Trespassers. Featuring many themes, scenes and art forms including pulikali, chavittu natakam, theyyam, duff muttu and oppana, the paintings have been winning attention, both from art lovers and students.

Artist Vishnupriyan Kooderi, one among the eight, says, “We started the work last February. Lockdown slowed it down by a few months, but we resumed in December and wrapped it up recently.” These artists say their

wall art

’s style isn’t like any other. “We haven’t followed any particular style. Moreover, it combines all our ideas,” Vishnu says.

The eight – Amith T, Ambady Kannan, Sreerag P, Vishnupriyan, Bashar U K, Pranav Prabhakaran, Arjun Gopi and Jinil Manikandan – were also part of the group that had created graffiti wall paintings earlier in various public spots of Kalady, from markets to bus stand. Their effort had won widespread attention back then too. Vishnu says, “After doing such a project in public spaces, last year we proposed to do this in our own campus. Once it was approved, we were asked to pick sites to execute it and that’s how we began.” The painters have used exterior emulsion for their work.

The group got the artwork done staying in a campus building for months together, from morning till night, with a break during noon.
Artist Jinil, who is now a student in Shantiniketan, says, “We haven’t given a name to this art, as it’s an experimental one that evolved with time accommodating eight individual artists' ideas. It was like a conversation taking shape.” What was the biggest challenge of such a work? Jinil says, “Unlike a portable canvas, this was a large fixed space. We had to work on it taking into multiple factors – like its own doors and windows, the other elements around it and more. The techniques to transform the space into art was also something that evolved as we worked on it, as it was very different from a normal canvas.”

They are planning to extend it to more walls in the university. Artist Bashar says, “Alongside getting it done on more walls in college, we also have some other works coming up. There is one as part of which we would be doing a collaborative art on a building near Kozhikode beach.”