Monalisa Patsani, OP
Bhubaneswar, May 20: As the city gears up to host the upcoming Asian Athletic Championship, a group of artists have started painting the walls on the Rajmahal flyover. The group involves professionals and art students from various art colleges of the city. The work is being carried out by a city-based voluntary organization in association with Bhubaneswar Municipal Authority (BMC).
Paintings on market scene
Satyabhama Majhi, one of the senior artists among all, who is also supervising the initiative said, “We have been assigned to fill the pillars of Rajmahal flyover with beautiful artworks to make it more attractive and pleasing. There will be around 26 pillars and both sides of the pillars will have creative work depicting the soul of unit-1 market. ”
Of past and present
“Since Rajmahal square and the Unit 1 market are very important places and have gone through lots of changes over the years, so we have decided to do a series of paintings on both sides of the road depicting two different faces of the area. Since, the place is mostly known for vegetable markets, all the paintings will be related to it. We are going to paint one side, where people would be able to see about things which used to happen earlier in the area—like loading and unloading of goods coming from various places, lines of trucks, roadside eateries among others. Similarly the other side of the bridge will give a glimpse of things happening now like shopping malls and modern lifestyle,” she said.
An artificial sky
The ceiling of the flyover is painted in such way that it gives a feeling of standing under the blue sky. “The reason we have painted the ceiling in blue color with clouds is that we wanted people to get a feeling that an artwork of people unloading vegetables is literally happening under the sky. Without the blue sky, it would have been difficult to get connect with all the art works,” averred Satyabhama.
First tryst with flyover
Sanjulata Sahoo, an artist who has been associated with many wall art campaigns, said, “It is one of the great initiatives to give an artistic look to the flyover. We have done this in many public places like railway station, public toilets, street walls and other places. It feels good to see walls in public areas be converted into beautiful canvas.” The work on the flyover will be completed within one month, she added. “At present we have been assigned to complete the Rajmahal flyover. The discussion about doing art work in other areas like Jayadev Vihar, Acharya Vihar, Vani Vihar is going on. We have not been informed yet. We have been trying since couple of years to convert our city, a city of open art gallery, and we are happy that people are appreciating our initiative,” said Sujit Mohaptra founder of the voluntary organization involved in the project.