Kathmandu:

We live in a world of colour. Land, plants, creatures and everything else that share this planet give us an amazing colour palette. Blue sky, green oceans, white mountains, orange sunset, golden rice grain all appear grey, black and white in the paintings of Hare Ram Joju. “I wanted to bring back people to the nature while the current trend is creating abstract and surrealistic painting,” he said. His transparent lokta works on canvas using oriental art technique are first of its kind of paintings in the country. A landscape painter, Joju seems to be well tuned into the nature. In his 24 paintings under the title ‘Nature’s Fantasy’, he has portrayed nature in the most glamorous form with ink and watercolour on huge canvases that are either grey, black or white.

We use and experience colour everyday in our lives without even appreciating it — reading signs on the road to seeing if a fruit is ripe, but we seldom get to see the nature as it is depicted in his paintings. “We, however, long to see the nature in this form,” he said. Nature is enormous and it would be almost impossible to include every aspect of nature. The elusive moments captured in his paintings are just fantasised pictures of artist’s imaginative mind. Texture and ink spread creates a three-dimensional effect. The paintings are Joju’s testimonials of being innovative and a pioneer in the field of creative art. Twenty per cent of the proceeds will go to SEWA, a social organisation working for the underprivileged children.

(The exhibition is on till December 2 at the Park Gallery, Lazimpat)