Kollywood shots @ Mahaxarts “The city and its layered history is my muse in most of my personal projects,” says city-based artist-illustrator Mahalakshmi Somasundar who launched Mahaxarts in 2021. “My fascination for Chennai started back in college. I studied Architecture and we had a course centred around the city, and I found myself dumb-struck learning the city I was raised in had so many layers of history,” says the 25-year-old who illustrates Madras-themed art on merchandise such as posters, postcards, art prints, stickers, and more.
Artwork at Mahaxarts| Photo Credit:Special Arrangement For #36DaysofType in 2021, the artist produced a series of illustrations on heritage buildings across the city starting from A to Z. This series was later developed into a poster called the Madras Alphabet, which showcases structures such as the erstwhile Jeypore Palace (once home to Amethyst Cafe) and Electric Theatre (present Chennai’s Philatelic Bureau), says Mahalakshmi, who has been gathering information about the city’s buildings for about two years. Mahalakshmi Somasundar | Photo Credit:Special Arrangement Other products include the Madras in Movies postcard series that has illustrated stills from Tamil cinema with historically salient buildings and landmarks such as Ramalayam Palace of the Travancore royal family of Kerala (seen in Muthu ) in the frame.
“The more I studied about Chennai, the more I was able to identify heritage structures as the hidden element in mo.