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Kathmandu,Wednesday February 16, 2000 Fagun 04, 2056.
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Art show on womanhood
By Subina Shrestha
KATHMANDU, Feb 15 - They are bold, direct and
innovative... Asmina Ranjit is back with experiments on art, womanhood and sexuality in
her new exhibit, "Cultural Body".
Her first solo exhibition since returning from
Australia five months ago, "Cultural Body" remains true to the original essence
of her work. The art continues to explore the sensuality and sexuality of the woman.
According to the artist, this exhibition not only
explores women’s sexuality but also sensuality. She seeks to find the woman that
lives under the clothes, behind social norms and values. "By using clothing and
adornment we present our formerly naked bodies to be seen as social and cultural
entities," she says. She has tried to express the sensuous woman -- "circumcised
within social values."
This exhibition’s pieces are neither love
poems nor tragedy. They are political statements that express the artist’s inner
turmoil. Asmina Ranjit still fumes over the unequal status of women and longs to correct
it. In Nepal, she is the first Nepali woman artist to be vocal about sexuality.
Unlike her earlier exhibitions, she has moved
beyond paints, brushes and canvases and has entered into a daring venture of cloth, prints
and women’s accessories. Layers of cloths with images of women’s clothing or
adornments shimmer to form the woman. The colours represent the personality of an average
Nepali woman -- they are bold, warm and loud, very Nepali, and very Asmina.
"Often people tell me that this subject is for
the West," says the artist whose work has also been displayed in Australia. Even
there, her work attracted wide recognition for its boldness. But Asmina Ranjit is not
apprehensive about the response to this exhibition. Rather, she is curious about
people’s reactions, especially art circles.
The exhibition, will commence from tomorrow at the
Siddhartha Art Gallery and continue till March 3.
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