KATHMANDU: The collective art exhibition ‘Maulik: A Venture of Eight Contemporary Artists’ has kicked off in Kathmandu’s Nepal Art Council, Babarmahal. The exhibition will be housed till 7th June. The exhibition was inaugurated by well known economist, editor, and writer Dr. Bibhakar Shakya.
There are eight young artists, Ishan Pariyar, Sabita Dangol, Laxman Bazra Lama, Anisha Maharjan, Namrata Singh, Nilesh Shakya, Deepmala Maharjan and Deepak Thami, have been participating in the exhibition.
Ishan has depicted the journey of the statue of Laxminarayan in his work, which was stolen from Nepal in 1984 and returned to Nepal recently by a museum in the United States. He is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s world-famous painting ‘Mona Lisa’. According to him, just as the importance of the ‘Mona Lisa’ was realized only after it was stolen, so the value of Laxminarayan’s idol and many other archeologically important idols wasrealized only after these are stolen from our temples and sold to western countries.
Sabita primarily working on couple theme in recent years which accompanied by different motifs ranging from ancient waterspout to temples, traditional windows, prayer flags, pauwa, tundal, and so on.
According to her, every experience should be taken with love, compassion, and harmony. One of her recurring motifs is a comb
which is a metaphor of ease and harmony as the comb makes us comfortable by untangling our hair. Similarly, the use of decorative patterns and designs are like waves for her which make her realize that keeping calm and emanating love is the only way to live and realize life.
Laxman takes art as the tool to communicate very common things from his perspective. So, Art for him is never a personal but a common thing. He has presented cloud series in this exhibition. According to him, the cloud, in omnipresent yet being inaccessible to humans, they cannot control it and sell it for their own benefit.
Anisha is sensitive towards women’s experiences and so, her artworks express what she saw, heard, lived, and felt as a female member of the society. According to her, women are still facing similar problems as centuries ago. She depicted emotions of girl child in her paintings for this exhibition. She has used primarily red tones which, for her, is
colour of life, colour of blood, colour of victory and colour of revolt at the same time.
Namrata works with Mithila patterns and motifs as it is the root of her culture. The characters of her paintings are always seen cherishing their life. Through her artworks, she intends to cherish her emotions and feelings which motivate, energize, give positive vibes, and direct life towards joy and tranquillity. According to her, just like a lotus flower which is always pure even its roots are always beneath the mud, we always have choice to find happiness within the experiences
of sorrow, and grief.
Nilesh’s art practice has significant part of both traditional and modern ideas, not only in techniques but also in concept making as he was practicing traditional sculpture prior to his academic venture of modern sculpture. In his recent series titled Panchaskanda (five senses), influencing from Buddhist philosophy, he has represented the five sense organs as the gateway to the outer world from the inner world or vice-versa. In another work titled Biu (seed), he has depicted
the outer seed as a womb which represents nurture of today and inner seed as a fetus growing inside the womb which represents future.
According to him, if we act today then only, we will be able to save our future.
Deepmala has been working in gender issues by exploring and expressing stories and experiences of women around her, sometimes comparing and contrasting with her own experiences. In this exhibition her works titled ‘Motherhood: Love, strength and friendship’, she has explored the dynamics of relationship between a mother and a daughter, from her childhood to her motherhood. According to her this is the story of herself and her mother who have offered immense love, strength, and friendship to her throughout her life. These works are created in the collaboration with her mother, former photojournalist, Heera Maharjan.
Deepak explores modern human greed in his artworks which has being amplified by unlimited desire of humans. According to him, thin bubbles in different shape, size and colour in his painting represents human beings who greed about their identity. But the reality is we are just like a bubble that pops too easily. Through these art works he ask a question, ‘do we have our own existence…?’
