NATIONAL9 [ (Spotlight Weelky)]

In The Fray

NAFA exhibition reveals that Nepalese artists can be promising provided if they get advanced training and other necessary facilities

By BHASKAR RAJ AMATYA

Nepal Fine Arts Association (NAFA) as in the past organized an exhibition on arts and crafts. Each year NAFA organizes such exhibition to mark the auspicious birthday of King Birendra. The exhibition was inaugurated by Queen Aishworya.

This year the exhibition was held to celebrate the 55th birthday of His Majesty the King. The 30th National Arts and Crafts Exhibition 2056 consisted of the arts and crafts that participated in the national competition of arts 1999.

The arts and crafts for the exhibition were selected by a group of senior artists and jury. Senior artists like Vijay Thapa, Kali Das Shrestha, Uttam Nepali, Kiran Manandhar, Dr. Abhi Subedi constituted the jury. The jury selected 226 art works out of 370 that were registered for the competition.

Artifacts in the exhibition were grouped into three different categories as Contemporary Arts, Traditional Arts and Crafts. In the exhibition, 226 different art works were displayed out of which 160, 34 and 32 were chosen under Contemporary Arts, Traditional Arts and Crafts respectively.

The Queen also handed over prizes to the winners in different categories of art. In the category of Contemporary Art, Uttam Kharel , Om Khatri and Erina Tamrakar were awarded first, second and third prizes for their creations entitled ëMen, Women, Animals and Birdsí, ëSiddhií and "Figure" respectively.

In traditional arts, Deepak Kumar Joshi, Ratna Gopal Sinkhwal and Nunem Raj Shakya were placed in the first, second and third positions for their creations entitled ëChakra Samvar Mandalaí, ëHari Bahan Lokeshworí and ëChaityaí respectively.

Similarly in Crafts, Prakash Ratna Shakya, S.C. Suman and Sangita Sharma secured first second and third positions respectively for their creations "Dharma Dhatu Mandala", "Krishna Lila", and "Bajra Jogini" respectively.

All the art works exhibited in the exhibition were tremendously remarkable. Each artist displayed his/her talents skillfully and their creation looked quite genuine and authentic. When the artists could achieve so much despite the lack of appropriate training and backing, they would obviously exhibit greater enthusiasm, zeal, perseverance and commitment if opportunity and appropriate facilities are provided to them.

Dr. Abhi Subedi, one of the member of the jury, praising the creativity of all the artists said, "My focus is not the prize for arts, but the nature of the art objects themselves. What impressed me most was the variety of the art objects. Nepali art is the sum total of a variety of styles and modes of arts from the traditional to modern. The plurality of art forms and styles is the special feature of Nepali arts that many artistic tradition of the world do not possess."

Since its establishment in 1966, NAFA has been providing forum for new borne artists to put their talents in the forefront. There are very talented artists in Nepal but enough is not being done by the government and other concerned authorities. The academy or NAFA or even the Art Campus is yet to make art training broad-based in a bid to meet the required standard in art pedagogy.

From the styles and difficulties of the artists it has become clear that a good apprenticeship or training of higher order has become necessary. The government should earmark budget to send artists for higher training in different forms of art.

Thanking all who assisted directly or indirectly to successfully conduct the exhibition, chairman of the National Art and Craft Exhibition Committee and a member of Royal Nepal Academy, Bijaya Thapa said, "It is through the natural beauty, art and culture that Nepal is made known to the world. Tourists that visit Nepal also return home with these impressions in their mind. So we should make efforts to achieve more from the investments that our ancestors have made in the past and hand it over to the future generation with adequate advancement and we should preserve it and be proud of it."