Invitation of an exhibition of paintings
'Sacred Spaces'
by Binod Pradhan
on Thursday 15th January 2009 at 4:30 pm.
www.siddharthaartgallery.com
Binod Pradhan's 'Sacred Spaces'
As a member of the Kasthamandap group, Binod has always been guided by the wisdom of his mentor the late Prashant Shrestha, who urged these young artists to use their art to "create a wise world of colourful life and culture." Binod's paintings seek to immortalize and preserve the cultural monuments of his city. Sacred Spaces can therefore be viewed as homage, to the enduring traditions of the Newari people. .
To understand and appreciate the evolution of Binod's paintings, it is important to mention some aspects of his earlier work. Though his previous works also revealed his fascination for Newari architecture, his latest paintings mark a transition, as they are more simplified and meditative. The hard black lines that the artist used to lead the viewer into his paintings, and highlight the structures of his jumbled cityscape, have disappeared forever. The search for and demarcation of geometric forms in his early landscape and city paintings was another aspect of his earlier style of painting. Despite his quest for depicting a "colourful life," Binod's selection of bright colour and the juxtaposition of these hues seem to have swamped these busy cultural vistas in a manner that renders a curiously flat and silent ambience in his paintings. Gone too are the humble men and women in his paintings, who had cameo roles in this, conjured cultural settings. In some of Binod's canvases these very men and women, appear as monumental as the chaityas he chose to paint.
It is interesting to note that his exhibition in the year 2008 marked yet another departure from his earlier work. The artist's retreat to Osho Tapoban and his travels to India, USA and Sri Lanka seem to be connected to this change. Even the canvases that he used for his paintings underwent a change and were constructed like a box so that his lines and colour could flow beyond the simple flatness of a canvas. Gone was the jumble of the city, and the hurly burly of lines. This period can be summarized as the beginning of the search for a more simplified narrative that matched with his burgeoning spiritual restlessness. It is during this period that Binod began to create a distinct space within a space in his canvases, to demarcate different realities and time zones in his canvases. The ' patchy' use of colours that appeared in some of his earlier paintings have been discarded and replaced by the use of bold areas of flat colour. Within the confines of these spaces, eerie monumental mask like faces peer out into the void, in others the visage of a bearded sadhu comes into view and is placed next to an energized area of colour representing the different stages of realization. A feeling of gnawing loneliness, confusion and self-alienation is palpable in these paintings.
Binod Pradhan's latest oeuvre of paintings 'Sacred Spaces', indicate a quantum change in the artist's vision. A myriad memories from childhood intermingle with the artist's spiritual awakening in these paintings. The temples, bahals, chaityas and stupas of Kathmandu, where the artist grew up and continues to live, dominate these canvases. The artist resurrects from his memories, the sacred spaces of his past: the bahals and courtyards where his family and erstwhile pilgrims worshipped and congregated for their pujas and their jatras.
The artist's recent trip to Bhutan, seem to have given him great solace and inspiration. The colours of the frescoes in the monasteries seem to have had a direct impact on the composition and artist's palette. Buddhist imagery from the artist's travels to India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka fuse together. The artist draws from this archive of imagery as seeks to connect architectural monuments with a familiar range of sacred motifs: chaitya, stupa and mandala, bodhi tree, lotus, prayer wheel and prayer flags, hand mudras and tibetan clouds. These motifs are used in isolation and taken out of their conventional context. The idea of creating a space within a space becomes reinforced as this idea is skilfully employed, by allowing colour to flow freely in some spaces, and then juxtapose this space against another more rigid prescribed space of flat colour.
Sacred Spaces is a celebration of new phase in Binod's artistic journey. His deft handling of colour is the hallmark of this exhibition. Vibrant colours orange, green, blue, yellow seem to explode in cosmic bursts and bathe his canvases in a surreal glow. The artist's enjoyment of his subject matter and his unrestrained palette indicate a release from many suppressed inhibitions. Some of the canvases in this series are outstanding. The artist has to be aware of the danger of falling into the trap of creating decorative works. It will be interesting to note what follows the oeuvre of this exciting exhibition.
