Walking still remains my favorite mode of commute and in your own city, even tipsy feet take sure steps through familiar streets. If you have walked around Guwahati in the past few months, you must have noticed something new about your own familiar street corner. Old walls and ancient trees seem different and new of late, colorful, expressive, fun – all of this with a message to boot. Art has step
ped out into the streets and is coming alive on walls and trees to tell you a story,give out a message and most importantly, please your eyes.While graffiti as an art form has been around for hundreds of years, it perhaps still remains without the seriousness and value that accompanies other forms of art. This frivolous notion of graffiti has changed internationally over time due to outstanding examples of graffiti artists such as Banksy although it still remains an alien and even frowned-upon form of creative expression closer to our world and culture. A group of young artists from the city now are out to change your notions regarding graffiti: SPOTLES. SPOTLES is the coming together of a few friends who bring their personal experience of their own modes of art to their graffiti-ing, be it tattooing or string-art and décor. While their tryst with graffiti began like all graffiti do, providing an unsanctioned and unauthorized alternate voice on various issues but now it is the city administration and the government that seem to have recognized the power of the graffiti in disseminating public plans and schemes. SPOTLES has been a major instrument in the beautification drive of the city carried out by the Kamrup Metro District Administration in association with the Guwahati Metropolitan Corporation which include their graffiti in the premises of the Kamakhya Temple on their cleanliness drive under the aegis of the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan and their project towards the beautification of the age-old Guwahati Circuit House in 2015. While it is graffiti that has made SPOTLES visible to the common man on the streets, they remain much more than a group of graffiti artists as they claim in their own words to be a group that “introduces and delivers Future Art, Creativity and Music to the people”. One hopes SPOTLES continues giving to the streets of Guwahati new dimensions and character with their brand of modern art that is still striving to carve a niche for itself in our country. Events participated by SPOTLES:
Rongali 2017,
Photochronica 2017,
Metropolis Asia,
Alcheringa of IIT Guwahati in the year 2015,
Under The Sky- The Urban River Festival -2015,
UJONI 2016
Splash Pool Party. AAIWA Signature Awards 2016
Graffiti on Food Places:
The Dhaba - Goswami Service, Guwahati. North Eastern Delicacies – Rajgarh RD, Guwahati. Café Bob Marlie – Siz Mile, Guwahati. Flavors- Silpukhuri, Guwahati. Graffiti on Gaming Zones:
Cold Play Game Cafe – Bamunimaidam, Guwahati. Pixels: The Gaming Theory – Beltola, Guwahati. Apart from events, We, SPOTLES did graffiti for various Commercial, Official and Residential spaces. Few of them are: Redbull- Guwahati, Don- Ulubari, The Urban Style- Dighali Pukhuri, Illusion and 8th Floor of Shoppers Point- Guwahati, Zero Degree- Dispur, etc. In the year 2015, SPOTLES took part for Beautification of the backyard of Circuit House, Guwahati in inspiration by Deputy Commissioner, Kamrup Metropolitan District, Guwahai, organized by BIO FRESH NEXT (NGO). The SPOTLES Crew : Prasenjit Kr. Deka (MAC), Jahidul Islam, Prashant Jain, Ankur Jyoti Das (KHATI).
