NEW DELHI: The perennial quest for one’s identity, stories of resilience and struggling for survival is an underlying theme that is resonating the make-shift walls at the sprawling venue of the India Art Fair here.
Conditions from across Nepal as well as the world around are being represented in the heart-wrenching artworks of six contemporary Nepali artists by the Nepal Art Council from Kathmandu.
Resilience for Nepalis can perhaps be best showcased in their fight to survive in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck the Himalayan kingdom in April 2015, and it is only natural that the calamity has directly or indirectly inspired such distressing artworks.
Printmaker Kabi Raj Lama’s work echoes the trauma in the advent of a natural disaster and is a homage to the “9000 people who died during the earthquake”.
The artwork, which is part of a series of lithographic prints titled “Fragments”, are meticulous and intricate in design and metaphorically underscore the importance of faith in difficult times.
The artist has juxtaposed the motifs with ruinous and broken compositions, and arranged them in geometric patterns to recreate first-hand images from the site of the disaster.
“It is a tribute to the courage and resilience of people in the face of such unprecedented tragedy when faith held them together. It speaks of the fragility of the nature, yet within the fragments emerges enduring hope and survival,” says Lama.
Another artwork by Anil Shahi offers a subtle yet powerful commentary on the human condition, by intertwining personal narratives of the artist as a dalit with the mythological tropes from the Mahabharata.
The work shows the body of a man pierced with arrows, through three different frames.
“Anil’s work will speak to your audience. He is talking about the post-earthquake situation. It’s like Bhishma… We have passed the earthquake but out government is not doing anything. It’s almost like we are living dead. It is a very powerful commentary that is political using mythology,” says Dina Bangdel, who has curated the artworks at the show.
While the theme of identity is omnipresent at the fair in some degree or the other, certain works scream out the helplessness of not knowing one’s roots.
One such piece by Sri Lankan artist Anoli Perrera is being exhibited by the Theertha International Artists Collective from Colombo.
The inability of Perrera’s aeging mother, who is a patient of dementia, to locate her roots, inspired her to create three artworks that capture the “uncertainty” of her situation.(Agencies)
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