WHERE THE ART COMES ALIVE first article THE POWER TO BREAK FREE Artist Jeevan Rajopadhyay, 61, worked with landscapes for a long time. So long that one fine day he decided he was tired of it. There came a time when he felt that the mountains and the trees in his paintings caused disturbances in his creative renderings. With the realization that people, after all, needed change, he started experimenting with other formats of creative expression. He soon found happiness in the fact that he could break free from the limitations of pre- determined shapes and boundaries of landscape paintings. jeevan rajopadhyay: Cont. on page 3 An Artist Who Paints for Himself CONTENTS My father was a music teacher at the Lalitkala Campus, the only college in Nepal to learn fine arts then. His artist friends from college loved the amateur paintings that I had made. The principal Kali Das Shrestha convinced my father that I should pursue arts in first person my higher education. I happily accepted, as it was my only real interest. CONTEMPORARY ART PG 2 By SC Suman & Ranju Yadav I soon completed my bachelor’s degree in fine arts. But I was clueless about how I would pursue a career in art. During those days, the paintings were sold at a very minimal price. There were no galleries or events where I could showcase my paintings. I had to UNVEILING PG 3 do something to make a living. I ended up working as an art designer and illustrator Gayatri by Udaya Charan Shrestha for a tourist magazine called Nepal Traveler. I lost touch with my practice of painting for ten long years. LIVING CULTURE PG 4 All this changed after I met legendary artist Lain Singh Bangdel in 1990 CE at an Udaaya: Doyens of Newa Culture exhibition held at the Nepal Art Council where he showcased three hundred of his paintings. Together with some friends, I enrolled in classes he ran at his house. Soon, I THE ART MARKET PG 5 began to feel I needed to leave everything else and focus on painting. Though it was an extremely difficult decision, I quit my job at the magazine. We studied with Mr. Bangdel Art for Sale until his final days in 2002 CE. Working with Mr. Bangdel was one of the best decisions of my life -- it gave me a career in what I love doing. MYTH BUSTER PG 6 Mr. Bangdel did contemporary, abstract and modern paintings. I did not understand Kumari Puja: Women on Top those art forms earlier. I loved to showcase landscapes in my paintings. I worked outdoors, not in the studio. Slowly, after joining Mr. Bangdel’s classes, I started to INTANGIBLE HERITAGE PG 7 understand and love the abstract form. I got to fully understand the power of colors from him -- what it is and how to use it. Wa Sya Dyo in a Box: How Not to Safeguard Heritage People always want to move forward, even if the situation they are in is perfect for them. There is always a curiosity about “what next?” Though my landscape paintings were CURATORIAL PERSPECTIVE PG 8 good, and people liked them, I felt like I needed to move ahead with my paintings onto something other than landscapes. Nepalese Art: Long Story Short Note After Mr. Bangdel’s demise, I experimented with landscapes. I tried to bring new forms in it and tried to attach my own identity to it rather than just copy nature. I struggled a lot in the initial phase...Cont. on page 3 APR-JUN 2021 | VOLUME 1 - ISSUE 4 NEPAL ART POST - [email protected] | Tel: 9802020484 Pg 1 © KGH PUBLICATION contemporary art HOPE AMIDST DESPAIR This painting depicts the entire humanity groaning under the tangential stress caused by the pandemic. This tangential force is first article deadly to humans but friendly to the Tree of Life (earmarked as fecundity and vitality in Mithila artwork – depicted in the border). It generates no negative radial force on the animals, but exerts deforming axial pressure on the entire human race. However, the overall effect is the invisible force in the spiritual realm, in the form of the inverted Tree of Life that has its roots in the sky, dispensing wisdom and creative energy (reinforced by the icons of a burning lantern and the lighting of the earthen pots) through its branches turned towards the Earth. The inverted Tree of Life, called Ashvatta Tree in Chapter Ten of the Bhagavad Gita, promises divine benediction for the key (depicted on the top right) that will open the padlocks and finally help to get hold of the devilish virus, thereby putting an end to a life of inactivity, fear and HOPE AMIDST DESPAIR uncertainty. BY SC SUMAN SC Suman Artist/Painter PREGNANCY DURING THE PANDEMIC I conceived my second child last October and have been struggling to protect myself and a new life from the destructive COVID-19 pandemic. The deadly pandemic has waged a ‘World War’ against the human race on the Earth. On the other hand, millions of doctors, nurses and midwives, mostly mothers, are on the battlefield to save humanity. Similarly, millions of pregnant women, including me, have been in a close fight with the Corona Virus by shielding and taking care of our babies. As a pregnant artist, I depict the above-mentioned idea in my Mithila artwork. The pregnant woman in the artwork is protecting her unborn baby by covering the womb with Welcome to MoNA. her hands. She dares not to wear a mask, because she Welcome to our WORLD. has to take double breath for herself and her baby. The rectangular border divides the painting into the human world and nature distinctly. The nature outside the border is CHANCE TO WIN “FREE ROUND TRIP safe and flourishing, unabated with trees, leaves, flowers and birds. Quite contrarily, the human world inside the border ECONOMY CLASS TICKET has been badly affected by crippling lives, untimely deaths ON QATAR AIRWAYS SELECTED and devastations. However, millions of mothers of unborn babies are optimistically caring and nurturing their wombs to ONLINE DESTINATION” continue the cycle of the human world.‘ Upto 10%* discount to all the museum visitors on Ranju Yadav Mithila Painting Artist any Qatar Airways selected online destination. An exhibition that showcases both of these artworks, entitled PREGNANCY DURING PANDEMIC Tangential Stress is a paroxysm of emotions, put together with BY RANJU YADAV the hope that we become less complacent and more appreciative of our nature and life, teaching us humility in the process. Visit mona.com.np for the virtual exhibition. APR-JUN 2021 | VOLUME 1 - ISSUE 4 NEPAL ART POST - [email protected] | Tel: 9802020484 Pg 2 © KGH PUBLICATION THE POWER TO BREAK FREE From page 1... The departure from his career as a landscape artist came after he enrolled as a student of legendary artist Lain Singh Bangdel. That landed him squarely in the arena of the abstract art format, which has become his mainstay till date. Says Jeevan, “when I start a new project with a blank canvas, I also start with an empty mind. I do not start out with a plan. After the initial few strokes of the brush, the canvas starts talking to me. And I talk back to it. The canvas guides me, and I follow its voice. The result has always been good.” In all his works, landscape or otherwise, the use of colors are premeditated. Each tone and hue is deliberate, and has its own meaning. The careful combination of colors create balance and depth, providing aesthetic appeal to the onlooker. “Color has dominated form in my artworks unveiling in recent years,” says Jeevan. “The perceived merit of an artwork of this type is determined by how bold and powerful the strokes are, and Goddess Gayatri, the conjunct form of deities Gayatri, Sabitri and Saraswati, is known as how much confidence is seen in the artist’s the mother of the Veda scriptures. Gayatri is the personification of primordial feminine choice of colors.” energy, which in today’s context characterizes the immeasurable and invaluable roles of This painting featured here, however, cannot women. She is the giver of the Gayatri mantra, which is the most powerful of all mantras, be really labeled as abstract art, as it resembles as pronounced by Lord Krishna in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. The mantra, which the form of an animal -- a shape that one essentially means “We meditate on that excellent light of the sun. May he illuminate our sees in real life. Is Jeevan drifting away from minds.” goes like this: the non-realistic format to something more representational? Perhaps. He certainly is oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ tatsaviturvareṇyaṃ bhargo devasya dhīmahi dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayat contemplating a return to the depictive format after this painting, the first of its kind that he ç e'/\ e'jM :jM tT;ljt'j{/]0o+ euf]{ b]j:o wLdlx lwof] of] gM k|rf]bot\ .. has painted, became an instant crowd puller. “I have not given it any title,” says Jeevan. “I Goddess Gayatri leave it up to the viewer to interpret and enjoy, by Udaya Charan Shrestha Oil on Canvas, 68 x 99 cm This painting was commissioned by the Museum of Nepali Art. like I do with all my abstract paintings.” Nevertheless, Jeevan admits that his own interpretation of this painting is a bull, mighty jeevan rajopadhyay: An Artist Who Paints for Himself but wayward. It somehow represents the current situation of the nation -- we have From page 1... I had to transfer my style from one technique to another.