iSurprise Street Art

French street art

The lady on the blue arch is only of many pretty portraits of people that are scattered across walls in snug alleyways and clustered neighbourhoods in Slave Island. French artist Christian Guemy from Paris, more commonly known as C215 visited Sri Lanka in 2014 and painted a series of stencilled portraits. How many pictures are hidden in Slave Island? We don’t know, but that makes the hunt even more thrilling. Have a stroll in the little laneways and find out!

We are from here

Slave Island-based artists Firi Rahman and Vicky Shahjahan's started a visual project portraying the people that make up the unique neighbourhood that Slave Island is. Their wall murals feature people from the community: sportspeople, street vendors, mechanics, musicians, actors and artists. Firi shares: “Slave Island is often perceived as an area filled with criminals, drug dealers and danger. It is also a place that is fast-changing and disappearing, being swallowed up by the rapidly “modernising” Colombo. #WeAreFromHere showcases the people who make Slave Island a fascinating, unique and diverse place”