When Art Meets the Street
Aradhika Sharma
An exploration of India's evolving public art landscape—from the murals of Lodhi Art District to the painted streets, stations, and neighbourhoods that are reshaping urban experience.
Art's First Home
Art began on walls.
The world's oldest galleries had no doors, tickets, or curators. Long before museums existed, people turned to walls to tell stories, record beliefs, and make sense of the world around them. In India, traces of this impulse survive in the prehistoric rock shelters of Bhimbetka, the frescoes of Ajanta, Kerala's temple murals, Madhubani paintings, Warli art, and the painted homes that continue to brighten villages during festivals.​​​
​Walls carried myths, rituals, harvests, journeys, and fragments of everyday life. Art belonged to shared spaces rather than exclusive institutions. Though the materials, styles, and settings have changed, the instinct remains remarkably familiar: to transform ordinary surfaces into places of expression, memory, and imagination. In many ways, today's public art movement continues that tradition.
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Across India today, walls, underpasses, railway stations, and neighbourhood streets are being reimagined as canvases. Some works celebrate local histories, others draw attention to environmental concerns or social themes, while many simply bring vitality and surprise to familiar surroundings. Together, they encourage a second look at places we often pass without noticing.
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Among the most celebrated examples is Delhi's Lodhi Art District, India's first open-air public art museum. Yet it is only one chapter in a larger story stretching from the heritage lanes of Udaipur to the flyovers of Noida, from Warli-inspired murals in Maharashtra to Madhubani-painted public buildings in Bihar.​​
Lodhi Art District: Colour in the Capital
Walking through Lodhi Colony today, it is difficult to imagine that this neighbourhood was once a collection of ageing government residential buildings. Peeling facades and dull, weathered walls blended quietly into the cityscape.
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That changed in 2015 when the St+art India Foundation began transforming those surfaces into large-scale murals. Today, nearly every corner offers a new visual encounter. A striking portrait of conductor Zubin Mehta stretches across an entire wall, baton raised as though directing an invisible orchestra. Nearby, Pandit Birju Maharaj appears caught mid-performance, his image capturing the grace and movement of Kathak.
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Elsewhere, birds sweep across multi-storeyed facades, forests unfold in layers of green, blue, and gold, and a giant hand gripping a pencil transforms creativity itself into a public monument. Some murals reward close attention with intricate detail; others rely on scale, turning entire buildings into works of art. The district shifts constantly between realism and fantasy, portraiture and abstraction, inviting visitors to view familiar streets through a different lens.
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What struck me most was the ease with which the artwork had been absorbed into the neighbourhood. Children cycled past walls painted by internationally renowned artists. Street dogs slept beneath towering compositions. Fruit vendors arranged their wares beneath painted forests, while auto-rickshaws paused beside murals that would draw crowds in a conventional gallery.
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From the perspective of the cityscape, the murals seem to have softened the visual rhythm of the neighbourhood. They interrupt rows of apartment blocks and concrete surfaces with colour, movement, and imagination. Yet they never overwhelm the life around them. Instead, they coexist with it, becoming landmarks, meeting points, and quiet companions to daily routines.
Public Art Across India
If Lodhi Art District represents a contemporary reimagining of urban space, Udaipur offers something older and more organic.
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Walk through the old city around Bhattiyani Chohatta, Maldas Street, and the lanes leading towards Lake Pichola, and tableaux unfold at every turn. A striking image of Shiva at Ambrai Ghat commands attention. Elsewhere, turbaned noblemen ride richly adorned horses across whitewashed facades, while processions of camels and elephants move through compositions washed in reds, blues, and ochres. Tigers emerge from painted foliage, and decorative motifs blur the boundary between architecture and artwork.
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The imagery draws deeply from the visual traditions of Mewar, echoing the colours and compositions of the region's celebrated miniature paintings. Yet these murals never feel frozen in time. Painted elephants share walls with tea stalls. Scooters gather beneath royal processions. Laundry flutters above scenes inspired by mythology and history. Walking through these lanes often feels like moving through an open-air sketchbook where the city's past and present occupy the same frame.
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The weathered walls of old havelis provide canvases rich in texture and character. Painted windows frame real ones, decorative borders follow architectural lines, and sunlight constantly alters the appearance of the artworks. Throughout the day, shadows move across painted figures, revealing details that might go unnoticed at first glance. The city itself becomes part of the composition.
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Noida presents an entirely different landscape. Over the past few years, flyover pillars, underpasses, and long boundary walls have become canvases for large-scale murals inspired by nature, folk traditions, and contemporary life. What were once uninterrupted stretches of grey concrete now carry texture, pattern, and narrative.
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The transformation is especially noticeable beneath elevated roads and metro corridors. Endless rows of concrete columns feature birds, dancers, folk motifs, and environmental themes. Infrastructure that might otherwise recede into the background acquires a distinct character. Functional spaces become more inviting, and daily commutes gain moments of delight.
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Nor are these cities unique. Across Maharashtra, Warli-inspired murals animate public walls with their distinctive white figures of dancers, farmers, musicians, and village communities. Despite their simplicity, the figures possess remarkable energy and movement, carrying an artistic language that remains instantly recognisable.
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In Bihar, artists and local communities have brought Madhubani art into some of the state's most visible public spaces. One of the most striking examples is Madhubani Railway Station, where vibrant paintings of birds, fish, trees, and mythological narratives transform a transport hub into a celebration of regional artistic tradition. Arriving travellers are greeted not by blank surfaces but by images that announce a strong sense of place.
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Kerala's mural traditions continue to inspire public works beyond temples and palaces, while cities such as Hyderabad, Kochi, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Pune increasingly use murals to enliven public spaces and strengthen local character. The styles differ, as do the histories behind them, but each contributes something distinctive to the visual life of the city.
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A Second Glance
During visits to Lodhi Colony, Noida, Patna, and Udaipur, what stayed with me was not a single mural but a succession of moments. A maestro conducting an orchestra. Shiva watching over a narrow lane. A tiger emerging from a painted wall. A procession of elephants crossing a facade. Street dogs claiming their place beneath monumental artworks.
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Each altered the way I moved through familiar spaces. I found myself slowing down, looking up, and sometimes taking a longer route simply to see what appeared around the next corner. The pleasure lay not only in the artwork itself but also in its element of surprise. A blank wall became a story. A flyover pillar became an unexpected canvas. An ordinary street offered a charming encounter with an artist's imagination.
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Public art will not solve the challenges of urban life. What it can do is enrich the experience of moving through a city. It encourages attention in places that are often overlooked and reminds us that beauty can appear in the most unlikely settings.
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In a country where walls have served as storytellers for generations, today's murals add new chapters to that tradition. Whether on a railway station, a flyover pillar, or the wall of an old haveli, they invite us to see familiar places with renewed attention.
About the Author
Aradhika Sharma is a writer and journalist with nearly three decades of experience across print, digital, and broadcast media. She has contributed articles, stories, reviews, and columns to leading publications and authored several books, including the bestselling Sunita Williams: Astronaut Extraordinaire, translated into multiple Indian languages. Her book Dear Agony Aunt draws from her years as an online advice columnist. Her diverse body of work includes children's journalism, radio scripting, personal biographies, online columns, and contributions to anthologies, reflecting a versatile and enduring commitment to storytelling.