Floating in colours and rhythm of cubist romance

KATHMANDU: Eminent artist Shyam Lal Shrestha, who incorporates cubism in his work, is back with ‘Images Through Time II’, a solo exhibition, that began on September 11 at Siddhartha Art Gallery, Baber Mahal Revisited.

His 19 paintings are certainly images through time with paintings being created from year 2006 to 2016. Moreover, his figurative paintings represent the love for cultural heritage and women along with showing the feeling of conjugal love. There are a few landscapes in the exhibition as well.

Shestha’s paintings are an interesting fusion of modern form of expression with traditional motifs and his paintings have a constant rhythm through the use of lines.

He has painted women in the traditional Newari dress — Hakupatasi (hand woven black sari with red border), shawl and choli, men in daura suruwal, Radha-Krishna, Meera, Buddha and more infused with wavy lines, rectangular blocks or lines depicting rainwater that create cubist impressions.

The use of soft colours and traditional motifs give a certain air of romanticism to his paintings. And looking at his paintings makes one feel as if you can hear the sounds as well.

In the painting ‘The Crowd and the Rain’, he has presented men and women in traditional dress and walking with black, blue and orange umbrellas in a heavy rainfall.

The translucent effect with white rectangular blocks, stiffness in the body to avoid the water and lines portraying the rain water certainly makes you feel the rain or hear the sound of heavy rainfall.

In another painting ‘Mira and Veena’, he has painted Meera and Krishna. Meera is shown sitting down on the floor and playing her veena, while at a distance Krishna is playing his flute. Shrestha has used hues like green, white, orange, yellow and blue where the wavy smoke-like lines around them gives you a sense of musical sound floating in

the surrounding.

The exhibition is on till October 7.