Kathmandu

Do vegetables and flowers talk to you? To you they may not, but artists like Yukari Minzuno from Japan and Sarita Dongol from Nepal can hear the flowers and chillies talk to them.

In the painting exhibition ‘Art Without Border 2015-Part 1’ organised by Women for Women Nepal that began on August 13 at Newa Chen Art Gallery, Patan their imagination has become reality on canvas. The works of two other Japanese artists Hitomi Sato and Toshihiro Tominaga along with Nepali artist Erina Tamrakar are also on display in the exhibition.

The featured artworks are very personal to the artists.

The subject matters they have chosen are close to their personal experiences.

Minzuno, who works with flowers and is inspired by their shape, colour, size and character, has explored her imagination with motif flower. In a set of four paintings, she has painted beautiful mountains in early morning, afternoon, evening and night as the setting using oil colour. Her mountains not just have blue or white colours but subtle hues of pink, purple and grey.

“I collected flowers then combined them together to form the shape of mountain, and clicked a photograph. Later I painted it on the canvas. I have never seen a real mountain in my life but I painted mountains as I was coming to Nepal,” Minzuno shared.

Meanwhile, chillies talk to Dongol. She is mesmerised by their shape, size and colour. However, the selection of colours of the Japanese and Nepali artists are a contrast. Where all three Japanese artists have used soft, light and delicate hues, both Nepali artists have used dark, vibrant and bold colours. The more use of white and soft soothing colours gives you a pleasant feeling in the Japanese artists’ works, while dark green, orange, red, black and more make the Nepali artists’ works powerful.

In one of Dongol’s paintings, she has painted a few chillies in bright red, yellow, orange and green colours that are hung on a brown and orange brick wall. In the painting created using acrylic on canvas, the chillies seem to be doing a group aerial dance and it is captivating.

For Tominaga, art is anything that makes him happy and he shares that happiness to others. In a painting, he has painted numerous mountains with their peaks in soft red, yellow, green and blue colours. Ant-sized people in colourful clothes are climbing the mountain with or without using a ladder. His painting has lots of space between the objects and the composition is spread all over the canvas. As such your eyes wander all over the canvas making you feel that you a part of the painting — you feel you are one of the climbers.

Sato, inspired by colour pencil shavings since she was a child, has created the image of pencil shavings in her canvas. Simple yet delightful dream-like artwork with lovely use of light and shadow are the features of her works. In one of the paintings of a starry night, a twirl of pencil shaving forms a tree-like structure that has been placed on a white ground and has shadows.

If you would like to see the contrast between subtle, delicate art of Japanese artists and bold, vibrant art of Nepali artists, then visit the exhibition that continues till August 17.