KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 3

London-based October Gallery has presented the fourth solo exhibition by Govinda Sah 'Azad' titled 'Absent Presence', which brings together a new body of large-scale and smaller paintings rendered in oil and acrylic on linen and canvas.

The works are informed by Sah's intriguing combination of insights into his local environment and his ongoing metaphysical musings about the nature of reality itself, according to a press release issued by Sah's private secretariat.

Describing his ongoing journey, Sah states: 'Originally, in Kathmandu, I worked in a realist mode before gradually moving towards abstraction in London where clouds became a subject that allowed me to meditate upon more spiritual aspects of nature. Margate, being more open, means I often work outside, where the change in the colour of light is more profound. One immediate consequence is that although my colour palette becomes simpler, my paintings feel much brighter. It's a challenge to capture these fleeting, almost transcendental effects, that are so difficult to hold on to, but that necessity forces my work to keep on developing, which delights any artist.'

Sah's work is composed of densely interwoven layers of mark-making, using oil and acrylic in what Sah describes as a 'long unfolding conversation between the artist and his canvas.' The painting proposesnew areas for consideration and further exploration of the process continues until a successful balance point is reached. In this way, works like Absence Presence became an example of a 'logo visual' approach to grappling with the conundrums that beset all of us. The painting grew out of isolation and the artist's feelings of separation from his distant family during the lockdown.

'The more I thought about my family, the more I became aware of their constant presence in my daily life,' Sah remarked.

'The problem only exists because of my own unreal expectations, my fixed projection of the world. By teasing it apart, deconstructing it and reconfiguring it afresh, I realised a much deeper truth that I cannot be apart from my mother or my family, we are always connected and can never be separated from each other, not even by distance,' he added.

Sah's first solo exhibition at October Gallery, 'Transcriptions', was held in 2011. Currently, Sah works in Margate, UK.

A version of this article appears in the print on December 4, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.