NATIONAL 9 (Spotlight Weelky)]

The Revelation

Two prominent artists exhibit works on the rich heritage and traditions of Nepal

By AKSHAY SHARMA

Two luminaries in the top echelons of contemporary Nepalese art, Shashi Shah and Batsa Gopal Vaidya, are exhibiting their works at the Siddhartha Art Gallery. SAARC Secretary-General Nihal Rodrigues opened the show this week.

Amid the plethora of colors on the walls, Vaidya told SPOTLIGHT: "My focus this time is on the rich heritage we have. I have tried to reflect in all my paintings the vibrant culture we have. In my canvas paintings, I have focused on painting with oil and acrylic."

Vaidya says there has been a marked change in the way society looks at art. "When I returned from Bombay after completing my art studies in 1970s, artists were held in low esteem. My studies were not appreciated then in Kathmandu because of such attitudes. But today, there are a growing number of Nepalis who buy art in a market that only saw foreigners until fairly recently."

Vaidya, who works at the Department of Printing in Singh Durbar, has won several awards inside the country and abroad. His works have been a serious topic of discussion for art lovers. "As a schoolboy, my optional subject was maths, but I took arts instead," he remembers. "I was doing my intermediate in commerce when I noticed an advertisement in the newspaper. It was a scholarship for a student of arts and I found that on the last day. My sister supported me when I applied at the college when the advertisement appeared for the second time."

Vaidya was born and resides in the ancient city of Patan. "Below his lattice windows the busy streets of Mangal Bazar bustle with life. From his balcony the mountains and the fabled rooftops of Patan Durbar Square dominate the

Himalayan skyline," says Sangeeta Thapa, director of Siddhartha Art Gallery.

The focus of Shashi Shah, whose name resounds in the art world in Nepal, is on the Dash Avatar (Ten Incarnations). "There is a chapter in the Bible — The Revelation — where Christ comes on a White Horse to save the world from chaos and it is similar to the Hindu tradition where Vishnu’s reincarnation comes on a white horse in the Kali Yuga," says Thapa, pointing to a painting.

Shah says, "The Ten Incarnations is the great philosophical tale of the progress and evolution of our culture and civilization. Among them, the kalki avatar is the protagonist of my paintings, a symbol. The declaration of Lord Vishnu ‘Wherever there is a crisis in humanity, I take on the incarnation to protect the world’, is the basic element for the survival of our world and civilization."

Thapa says: "Shashi Shah is a master draught person. His early drawings in pencil, pen and ink reveal the power and austerity of his lines. His early wash paintings and drawings tell the story of a restless sensitive artist, seeking to give an evocative voice to the injustices and inequalities in life: twisted figures merge in a surreal nuclear landscape, faces scream silently at you. Shah’s paintings straddle the cycles of time in the Hindu cosmos — the ten incarnations of Vishnu becomes a subject of artistic meditation and personal philosophy."

Although the Kalki avatar is the last one of all philosophical avatars, Shah says, it is the expression of a desire and hope for peace and a vision for the continuity of the future. "No matter what crisis we face and whatever the dangers may be, the world is surviving up to now. In order to protect the world from its possible doom, a situation is always created in one form or another, from somewhere or someone. It is, however, not necessary that the Kalki avatar should appear, it is only a symbol. Our world, our civilization must survive at any cost. This is the Kalki’s mission," he adds.

Thapa says: "To understand the surreal imagery of Shah’s paintings, one should delve and dwell in the ten incarnations of Vishnu: Matsya (Fish), Kachayapa (tortoise), Baraha (boar), Narasimha (man-lion), Bamun (dwarf), Parashuram, Ram, Krishna, Buddha and the Kalki (the white horse).

"Some of Shah’s mixed media works deal with the Royal massacre in Nepal — newspaper clippings of the royal obituaries are complexly interwoven with drawings, in an attempt by the artist to look for some answers in his art," Thapa says. "These works reveal a time of spirituality in chaos, a world turned topsy-turvy as symbolized by scattered chess pieces."

The exhibition will continue until October 17 at Siddhartha Art Gallery from 11 am to 6 pm.