New Delhi : Alliance Francaise de Delhi became a colorful venue when three young French painters – Martin Dezer, Julien Migwel and Ken Keflione – got together on December 14, 2008, morning. A crowd surrounded the graphic artists, comprising of students, parents and young kids. The artists, who specialize in graffiti art, started displaying their craft sketching and painting on sneakers, belts, ipods and mugs. One could also customise their clothes by getting a graffiti done on them, live. By early afternoon, they had enough orders to execute for the rest of the day!
The trio was in Delhi as a part of the 60th anniversary celebrations of The Human Rights Declaration being organised by Alliance France . Graffiti is the perfect choice of art for the anniversary celebrations, as it is recognised as a medium to exercise one of man's fundamental rights, the right to free speech and expression.
Dezer, the eldest member in the group says, “Graffiti is an invented art. It first began in New York neighbourhoods, in a society full of violence and repression. So youngsters just found out this new way of expression, taking from what they saw around them.” Dezer who had been graffiteing for the past fifteen years began by painting subways and trains.
The three artists are part of the SOAP collective, which gathers French artists such as painters, spray painters, graphic designers and illustrators. They are based in Brittany and are famous in France for their monthly magazine SOAP, which presents work from all the different artists.
Although the artists specialise in spray painting, each have their own different passions: Julien is a famous graphic designer, Ken is a painter and Martin is famous for customising clothes and shoes with his sprays. Their mission in India was simple: to share some of their skills with art lovers and to show the multiplicity of things you can do as far as visual art is concerned.
Julien, or ‘Migwel', has been painting for over 10 years. He is an excellent sketcher and apart from spray painting, he is also a graphic designer. He exhibits a lot of his work and he is the creator of the SOAP association years ago. His web site is www.migwel.com.
Martin, or ‘Dezer', is one of the most famous French spray painters. He enjoys painting on discs, mugs, T-shirts, shoes, etc. His web site is www.djmarrrtin.com.
Meanwhile, Ken, or ‘Keflione', a graduate from St Martin's Beaux Art School in London , is an accomplished brush painter who loves mixing painting with sketching. His web site is www.keflione.com.
The team, in March 2008, had displayed their art at many venues in the country including Mumbai. They have also painted in many sites which they have visited like Bhopal (where they remember painting on rocks because they couldn't find a wall), Bangalore , and Kochi . The three graffiti artists who were in Delhi for a week, also collaborated with artists from the city's slum areas and created pieces on the walls of the slums.
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