After an excellent participation at this year’s Nuart Festival, Miami-based artist Alejandro Dordas aka Axel Void headed to London where he after just a few days quickly painted this beautiful mural based on a photo he took in a slum known as G.S. Nagar in Chennai, India.
Titled ‘LIFE’ and curated by Unit 5 Gallery London with the support of Wood Street Walls, the mural is situated in a very lively neighbourhood near Wood Street. A place full of local businesses such as restaurants or small markets.
According to the artist, it is interesting to see the mostly harmonious interaction between neighbours in such area. He describes the place as follows: “Kids play cricket in this parking lot, the employees rest in their cars before they do their shift, one of the neighbours does pushups on the parking door entrance, a family excessively feeds the pigeons several times a day, and the employees from the Turkish restaurant insist in giving me some of their delicious lamb even before they knew I would be painting. Given England’s history as a coloniser and their recent division from Europe, the image creates a strong cultural contrast as well as proposing an analogy with other neighbourhoods where I felt this kind of welcoming. Never the less this mural is about every day life.”
Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
