Kathmandu:

Beauty, sound and silence of bells. Words cannot express it, colours cannot paint it and the camera cannot capture it. However, when three mediums come together, you can see the colours, and hear the sound and feel the serenity of bells.

It is this remarkable effort by three artistes — poet Manjul, artist Manish Lal Shrestha and photographer Herbert Grammatikopoulos — that has captured the magic off bells, and the exhibition tiltled ‘Bells: Silence and Sound’ at Gallery 32, Dent Inn at Heritage Plaza, shows the confluence of these three genres of art.

Veteran artist Shashi Bikram Shah inaugurated the exhibition on March 15.

Whlie Manjul expressed his inner feelings of silence and outrage with bells as the metaphor in his poems, his words gave sounds to the expression in the paintings and photographs. Shrestha, on the other hand, has visually interpretted the energy and sound of the bells through his deft strokes that have given life to his paintings.

Speaking about his work Shrestha said, “I work with sound and try to rouse people though the sound of bells. I speak on various issues through my paintings that mostly uses bells as the metaphor.”

The bells captured by photographer Grammatikopoulos’ lens have expressed not only the religious significance of bells, but also the sound. Whether it rings at busy temples, or lies broken and forgotten at dilapidated temples, the bell speaks of breaking the silence. The exchange of three ideas on the same subject has enhanced the whole concept of symbolising its existence.

The exhibition is on till April 14.