NATIONAL8 (Spotlight Weekly]

Art of Mithila

Artist S.C.Suman displays his paintings on Mithila culture and tradition

By BHASKAR RAJ AMATYA

Nepal is known as the land of various ethnic groups and tribes. From plain of terai to the high Hiamlayan region, all ethnic groups have their own culture and tradion. Mithila is one of them. The art and culture of Mithila has its own beauty, style and presentation.

This is what one can see in a reecently organized art exhibition that was held in, the capital city, Kathmandu. The art is called the Maithili art, which were drwan by the artist S. C. Suman.The art depicts Lord Krishna in Raash Lila, Gopies, Ram, Sita, Ganesh, Fish, Crabs, etc.. The art is based on the cultural traditions of ancient Mithila.

Mithila is historically a more frequently used name for a somewhat fluid cultural region than for a geographical or political reason. Mithila once covered the large areas of modern Bihar and Nepal, including the regions of Rautahat, Sarlahi, Mahottari, Saptari and Morang.

Several traditions of womenís floor and wall paintings are associated with ritual practices and continue in their orthodox forms. When Mithil Brahmins perform the samskaras, the rites of passage or initiation of the individual, the women of these communities conventionally draw geometric diagrams, known as aripan, on floors plastered with mud and cow-dung, their fingers dipped in rice paste.

S. C. Suman was born in Morang, the district engulfed with the cultural fabric of Mithila. During the inagural the artist, Suman, delivered a short speech relating the saga of his struggle for the fulfilment of his love towards the painting. He reveiled that he had won many prizes at his school for his paintings. His love of paintings was against the expectations of his family of his future. It was his grandmother who taught him the traditional Maithili painting and put him to this front.

Suman has won many awards for his paintings and has been prolific despite being a full time job holder as a textile designer in Biratnagar. His Maithili and fabric art have seeped one into the other, both playfully and exquisitely executed. It is indeed, the paintings in which he experimented with natural pigments, that brought his painting to this forefront.

CERAMIC

Carole Irwin's Creation

Human can express their inner feelings through different medium and ceramics is one of the form that an artist can pour his inner gestures to the external world.

Carole Irwin for the fourth time in the Indigo gallery has exhibited her works in Ceramics. The exhibition included the incredible artistic designs of table wares, vases, show pieces and even flower pots.

Clay is malleable, intractable and capable of taking any shape and that is why artists work in it rather than canvas, stone, or precious metal, but one demerit is that it is prone to cracking. In some parts of the world ceramics is viewed with a high form of art while in others it is only a simple building material.

Glazing is still virtually a new technology not only in Nepal but all over the world. Each ceramic piece invibes a lenthy creative gestation period of inspiration, research, experiment and execution. The firing stretches out this process, with eight hours of firing and two days of cooling and only then the fireís magic releases itís unpredictable beauty.

Nepali clay matures at a low temperature so it is not possible to achieve the kind of glazes found in the soils of Britain or Bangladesh. She is of the opinion that such kind of limitations often provides inspiration rather than frustration for an artist.

Carole trained as a potter in Manchester, England. She first worked in Nepal for GTZ in Bhaktapur at the Ceramics Promotion Project. She also Taught the techniques of decoration and glazing to a group of women when the Janakpur Women Art Development Project was looking for new areas for their painting. Shefounded the ceramics department of ìIdeas Internationalî in Bangladesh. Cheap gas and excellent quality of clay in Bangladesh made it possible to design table ware and vases of good quality. She also has set up her own studio in Jawalakhel.