KATHMANDU: Eye-catching cartoon-like paintings along with calligraphy influenced artworks adorn the walls of Siddhartha Art Gallery, Babermahal Revisited. These street-art inspired paintings, that have made their way to the gallery, are the creations of two street artists — Shraddha Shrestha aka Deadline and Kiran Maharajan aka H11235.

The joint painting exhibition — ‘Holy Head Space’ by Deadline and ‘Life Is’ by H11235 — kicked off on April 14.

Wondering why are the artworks of these street artists in the gallery? They are the recipients of the Australian Himalayan Foundation Art Award 2015. Since 2010 the Australian Himalayan Foundation has been awarding Nepali artist from various genre — traditional thanka painters, contemporary artists, print makers and street artists — to showcase their talent. And the winners of this award put forth an exhibition of their works and it is the sixth edition.

The works on display prove calibre of these artists’ — and a justification of them being awarded. The duo have expressed themselves in awesome figurative forms using their brilliant concept, skill and colours.

Deadline’s paintings spread across the ground floor of the gallery. Her works are based on religious figures of Hinduism — Lord Shiva, Lord Ganesh, Goddess Parvati, Airawat elephant, Lord Narshigh, et cetera. Interestingly, rather than presenting their stereotypical images, she has presented them through extra terrestrial life, aliens and monsters. Fun to watch, the animated paintings are striking in bold neon shades — of pink, yellow, orange, green, et cetera.

For instance, in ‘Family Portrait’ she has painted the family of Lord Shiva and their bahan (vehicles). Deadline has transformed Shiva, his wife Parvati and two sons Kumar and Ganesh into aliens through clever use of colours and modification of their physical features. Lord Shiva in blue colour has three eyes but does not have a forehead and hair. Three eyes are seen popping out forming a head with a long beard. Parbati too has three eyes in shades of pink, half of her hair is maintained in a bun and other half is kept loose. Then Kumar’s rectangular face has eight purple eyes. Ganesh with bright yellow round

eyes and green body is wearing dhoti. Their bahan — bull, peacock, mouse and tiger — resemble soft toys.

However, works of H11235 have serious tone — they compare and contrast the qualities of humans and animals. He has used the technique of photo realism, calligraphy and deconstructivism to create his works.

In one of his painting ‘Beginning’, he has painted a new born baby of human and calf of an elephant. He has painted it in the grey backdrop with elements of calligraphy in white. The body of the baby and calf are merged — their different body parts are placed together to form one complete body. The body parts are placed in synchronised way, without any difficulty to watch the distorted form of lives.

The exhibition is on till May 10.