Sculptures from millennium-end

Kathmandu: Sculptors and artists have taken ‘Sculptures in Wood: Symposium 2005’ which is on at Sirjana College of Fine Arts, Kamaladi, as an endeavour to revive the glorious history of Nepali art.

Veteran painter Kiran Manandhar opines, “We are delighted to working together with so many artists at a place.”

The painters doing wood work provide the viewer quite a show. Dripping with sweat, Manadhar explains, “Sculpture requires physical strength while in painting it is more mental work.”

Sculpture workshops are rarely conducted as they are considered expensive as well as time consuming as compared to painting workshops. Sirjan College of Fine Arts in collaboration with Arambha — a contemporary Nepali sculptors’ group — organised this workshop.

A total of 32 sculptors and artists are working on wood for the past 12 days. “I come here at 11 am and work till 7 in the evening,” said Sunita Rana, a freelance artiste. She has been cutting a huge log of wood but her piece is still evolving. “I am trying to show the difference between soft and hard textures,” she says. “Light has no meaning unless there is darkness.” Rana is a painter and it is the first time she has tried her hand in sculpture.

There are other artists who are old hands. Ram Krishna Bhandari has been working in the theme of ‘beauty contest.’ He has carved out a beautiful lady, naked and with no legs. “The beauty contest presents a women naked to the world. And although media hype does magic to the whole concept, in reality, they have no height in society,” he says.

Other sculptures in the workshop are expressions of the artistes about contemporary events in the country. The workshop ends today. — HNS