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EXPOSITION |
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EXPOSITION |
Adding Beauty to Discarded Objects American Poet and
Photographer Wayne Amtzis depicts the core reality and the hardships of life of the people
of streets in Kathmandu By THAKUR AMGAI “Beauty lies in the eyes of the
beholder.” To a layman scraps are never things of
beauty. In the eyes of a poet, everything is beautiful. To unveil the beauty out of every
object in nature is an artist’s creative ability. Through the miraculous art of
creation, an artist can turn every scrap into a magnificent piece.
An artist’s ability lies in
changing black to white. What is already beautiful to everyone does not need further
embellishment. Those are real creators who can strap up beauty out of scraps and discarded
objects. In an exhibition entitled still life/street
life, American poet cum photographer Wayne Amtzis shows the beauty of objects,
particularly the thrown away ones in composition with the poems he has written to give an
elaborate explanation to the pictures shown. The exhibition put up at the Siddhartha Art
Gallery, BaberMahal, has two discreet categories - still life and street life. Still
photographs show pictures of objects and in-house installation with poems written by
Amtzis in the background. I collected thrown away and discarded
objects from the streets, says Amtzis, and put them along with my poems as installations
and took the photograph. He then changed the color of the photographs to add beauty and
make it artistic. Thus, the still life photographs are more of art-piece than photos. The
poet has shown the beauties of discarded objects. To what is viewed as worthless by a
layman’s eye, he has added beauty. By showcasing the objects that he has used
for the photograph in the Exhibition Venue, Amtzis has tried to show the viewers how the
rubbish can turn to beauty with a different perspective of looking at it. In the street photography category Amtzis
has captured the lives of various streets of Kathmandu. The photos particularly show lives
of people in the street around Bhotahity, Bagbazar and Ratna Park area - the heart of the
capital city. “I have tried to capture people in
their real-life situation,” says Amtzis. The photographs show the reality of life as
it stands. Amtzis likes to particularly show the lives of underprivileged people. Most of
the photographs are of laborers. All the photographs are in their natural setting and have
a deep meaning. While some of the photographs are in the
backdrop of traditional architecture, others’ depict the situation of the working
people in front of their working premises with modern buildings and other symbols of
modernization in the background. While a few pictures are self-explanatory,
most of the photographs are symbolic. Senior poet, Dinesh Adhikari found Amtzis’ work
more symbolic this time as compared to his past works put up in previous exhibition.
Amtzis has already organized two exhibitions before this one at the same venue. “The
relation Wayne has tried to show between body, speech and mind in one of his pictures is
very symbolic,” says Adhikari. Why did he choose to capture the street
people? Amtzis says, “ I want to show life as it is.” Such is the scene seen
around the main streets of Kathmandu. But people overlook it. He says, “ I show their life, because
their miserable life is looked down upon by others. And no body cares about them.”
The exhibition has a total of 45 photos. The street life photos are mostly black and white
while the still life photographs are in color. |
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