The Mahindra Blues Festival poster goes digital, Artist Aashti Miller gives artistic tribute in her style

The iconic Mahindra Blues Festival, Asia’s largest blues music festival, is back this year with its 11th edition on the 11th and 12th February 2023 at Mumbai’s renowned Mehboob Studio. Just like there is curiosity around the artists’ line-up, the art-loving audience also waits for MBF’s ‘Poster of the Season.’ Here, the festival collaborates with an artist each year on a theme that depicts the spirit of both the city and the blues genre of music. The poster, this year, draws inspiration from the bylanes of Mumbai - a city bustling with infectious energy, glamour, business, and not to forget the lip-smacking food that attracts food lovers across the globe. And, of course, there’s the Blues genre that leads the whole narrative of this artistic communication.

For this year’s edition, Aashti Miller, artist, architect and illustrator, uses her creative prowess to bring out a tastefully done poster layered with intricate thoughts and emotions. From the colours, characters and flow, the artist’s tribute to the blues fest is one to savour with pride.

Aashti’s work is heavily inspired by spaces, places, and faces, with a meticulous sense of aesthetic and style that treads the fine line between constructed and painted, digital and analog, 2D and 3D. The Mahindra Blues Festival 2023 poster by Aashti is inspired by Mumbaikers often seeking a safe haven from the gumption of the city. They would be frolicking in bars which come alive when blues bands sing evocatively in call-and-response, dispelling worries through familiar rhythms. It is designed to encompass this love for the genre, recreating an environment in which one has found a home for themselves. Furthermore, the poster comes with a digital interface - a  QR code which the festival attendees can scan to activate and experience an immersive AR filter on Instagram.

Garnering recognition as India’s premier blues festival over the last decade, Mahindra Blues Festival is often regarded today as more than just a festival. It is seen as the epitome of blues, a cultural movement by the music fraternity from around the world.

Since its inception, the Mahindra Blues Festival has been instrumental in putting the blues genre of music on the global/Indian map by promoting various blues artists through their platform. However, music artists aren’t the only ones to whom the festival lends its support. Each year, it also collaborates with various talented artists for its innovative poster.

During its past editions, we have collaborated with artists like Ashwam Shrikant Salokhe, Jenny Bhatt, Rajmahamad Pathan, Aditi Singh and more who have created some unique artworks across the years for the festival while also hosted music legends such as Buddy Guy, John Mayall, Arinjoy Sarkar, Taj Mahal, and Billy F. Gibbon who sang soulful songs, keeping the crowd moving into late evenings. This year, too, will witness audiences moving in unison to the trance-like atmosphere created by melodious blues by artists like Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, Christone Kingfish, Ivan Singh, and Arinojay Sarkar. Moreover, complementing the music and enriching the vibes of the festival will be world-class food courts and malts present at the venue. The Mahindra Blues Festival indeed brings the best blues, delectable food and an ambience that promises to make the evening a memorable one.