KATHMANDU: Seven different portraits of elderly people are seen on the white wall. These are no ordinary portraits — they are the shadows of images carved in the paatyan (bamboo sheath). When light is passed through those carved paatyan, the shadow of the elderly people is formed on the wall.

Sandhya Silwal is the artist behind this unique artwork. She has delivered the result in a perfect manner — details like wrinkles on the faces of elderly people can be clearly seen in her works.

This and more artworks are part of ‘Dolakha Album Exhibition’ that began on August 12 at Artudio, Chauni Hospital Road. The exhibition features works of those artists who participated in project Dolakha Album — a community homestay art residency at Gairimudi, Dolakha — from May 3 to 10. Along with Silwal, Sujan Dangol, Surendra Maharjan, Rajan Shrestha and Abhimanyu Dixit are other artists of this project.

“These artists were challenged. They could not use any materials taken from Kathmandu but had to search, learn and use locally available resources for their artworks,” shared Kailash K Shrestha, Director / Curator /Artist of Artudio, Center for Visual Arts, that had organised the art residency programme.

Silwal chose paatyan as her material. “Only on the third day of residency, the idea of using paatyan clicked in my mind. There were many bamboos at Dolakha. I figured that paatyan would fall itself as it ages. And looking around I found many elderly people in Dolakha, and I related them in my art,” she said.

But not all artists could bring the works they created in Dolakha back to Kathmandu. Dangol chose various objects found in Dolakha and created an installation art to showcase the soci-economic condition of Dolakha. Because it was big in size, it was not possible to bring the installation back to Kathmandu. So, for this exhibition, he created another installation to showcase the social condition of Dolakha and his connection with it. He has pasted various objects like chair, utensils, pipe, et cetera on the wall for the same.

Other artists have created video installations and made a film relating the lifestyle, people and land of Dolakha. The exhibition also features photographs of artists and children during workshops. A documentary on the works of these artists was also screened on the first day of the exhibition.

“Through this project we have tried to take art to grass roots level and attempted to decentralise art. Our next project will be Mustang Album,” Shrestha revealed. The exhibition is on till August 20.