Kathmandu:

The elderly artist is in love with birds, not superficially though, but out of his deep, spiritual bonding with them.

The paintings of Jeebnath Pokhrel on exhibit at the Nepal Tourism Board clearly let the viewers feel the innocence of birds. The artist does not seem to condescendingly gaze at birds with human perspective, but sees them in their own real beauty. The birds in the paintings look ‘unadulterated’ by the concepts of humans.

The exhibition entitled ‘Our Relation with the Birds of Koshi Tappu and its Surroundings’ was inaugurated on January 7 by the Minister of Education and Sports Pradip Nepal. The exhibition, which is Pokharel’s third solo of bird paintings, aspires to raise awareness on the different species of birds found in and around the Koshi Tappu.

The endangered species of birds occupy the major portion of the collection. Using watercolour and acrylic on paper, Pokhrel has images of birds like Darter, White-backed vultures, Amur falcon, Pallas’s fish eagle, Lesser Florican, Lesser Kestrel, Kashmiri flycatcher and many more. The birds are mostly perched on branches, walking or about to fly. All the paintings are simple, figurative. In one or two places, however, perhaps due to his focus on birds, the size of the branches do not seem proportionate to the size of birds.

Regarding his way of painting birds, Pokhrel shares, “I try to capture images of birds going to the field as many times as possible and paint them.” He used to paint “everything” before, “but developed birds as my specialised field seven years back as I loved birds very much from childhood,” he informs.

When asked which is his favourite bird, Pokhrel smilingly responds, “I cannot do injustice by telling I love one the most. If you want to talk in terms of beauty, I feed crow everyday in the morning. They love me and I love them equally, like I love other birds. So I cannot distinguish between them.”

The exhibition is on till January 9.