Uniting People Through Art

By Jashvitha Dhagey

‘Zake’ is a name that one must have seen at least once on the streets of Mumbai. His art adorns the streets of this city and has many a time served as a background for Instagram worthy pictures and leant a splash of colour to people’s TikTok videos. The man behind this name and the man behind this art are the same but also different.

“I feel like all the different sides of me are at constant loggerheads with each other. I’ve spent too much time trying to nurture one side because I thought it was the only way I could be!”, says he, who found freedom in embracing his several different interests. He realised that he could indeed be a master of all trades if he practised them enough. After making his work seen on the streets of the world, this pioneer of the Indian graffiti scene is now apprenticing under a tattoo artist! “It’s an art form that has intrigued and intimidated me for quite some time now”, he says.

He believes that the beauty of life is in living as your honest self because nothing can make you more human than that. Zake is always on a quest to create things and leave his mark wherever he goes.

On taking up space that is not really his, he says that this is the space that actually helps him find solitude! “When I start writing, the whole world dims out. That is my way of zoning out and into my bubble of peace. It helps that people enjoy it!” he adds. When writing for himself, he looks for dilapidated and abandoned spaces to bring to life. He aims to create spaces for people from all walks of life to come together. He wants people to feel a sense of real kinship through the freedom to express themselves. “Why write on Facebook walls when you can write on actual walls?”, he quips.

As someone who has always tried to form his own perceptions about things, he feels that his art too, should be open to interpretation which is why he never names his pieces!

Graffiti art didn’t just shoot him to fame, it also taught him patience and the ability to detach himself from his art which he says is a really important quality to go on as a graffiti artist. “People paint over things all the time!”, he says. But the memory of a train he painted at Karjat in his early days is one that is special to him because the train ran for several years without his work being painted on. The reason? He had left the train number untouched.

Unfortunately, he says that street art is not valued in India as it is in other countries where artists are paid better. This allows them to travel and gain the exposure they need to get better at their craft. But he’s optimistic about the future for social media is making people look up and notice. With more women entering the scene in India, he feels that it’s reach is about to grow. He signs off by saying that he looks forward to Mumbai being covered with art completely and making a place for itself on the graffiti world map.