By Gyanendra Biwas
Nepali Art has been making use of different experimentations from time to time. Sometimes paper is used, while some times, clothes and nails are also used to make a collage. Sometimes, poems are pasted on the canvas, while there also are occasions when lines from books are quoted with color on the canvas. It was senior artist Uttam Nepali who introduced the art of incorporating poetry in painting and making the portrait of the poet on the canvas. His artistic works are, like his name, uttam, meaning ‘the best’. In 1976, it was Mr. Nepali who pioneered a different experiment by organizing an exhibition of paintings with poetry and poets reflected on the canvas. Maybe there are very few witnesses of those days alive today, but a study of archives reveals that it was he who had introduced the art of such experimentation in painting those days.
In a gap of many years, Nepali also cast in painting the faces of many other established poets. In 1997, he launched the world of a different artistic form in which 66 exponential writers were portrayed, alongside their best known poetic creations. The long struggle of the poets too was presented through strokes on the canvas. The presentation sent forth an appeal to hone painting and literature together.
For this task, he used to invite one poet everyday to his art studio. With a canvas places before the poet, he would start capturing the moods seen on the face of the poet. While painting those faces, he also considered one of the famous works of the poet as a base. Rather different from a photograph, he would paint a semi-abstract picture on the canvas.
From 1995 to 97, he gave continuity to this effort without any break. Every day, he would spent about three hours with poets. As a result, poets could inscribed on canvas. This dedicated continued in silence, incorporating classical concepts of art and poetry. It was a type of Samadhi, a dedicated pursuit. This ensures the synthesis of painting and literature in an unprecedented amalgamation.
The canvases thus painted did not merely have a crowd of faces. They also contained an unprecedented instance of the poets’ life and identity. More than the face of the creators, their creations found a just treatment in them. The exponent of abstract art had lent, in his semi-abstract paintings, a poetic representation. This very art of him came to become a synthesis of art and literature, bringing them together.
Artist Uttam Nepali considered it a Kala-Samadhi, the higher order of artistic elegance. He said, “The bliss that comes after accomplishing a painting and a piece of writing is the same. Their mediums or subject maybe different. In fact, this difference is not a difference per say. Rather, it is a mutual consonance among subjects. Literature and painting cannot stay separated from each other. The aim of my creations is to make them united.”
Even before, Uttam Nepali had a great name and fame in whatever he did. He made several paintings based on his seriously contemplated ideas. Those abstract paintings are laden with philosophical meanings from the world and life. He also ran his brush on sexually explicit paintings on tudals—carvings on temple woods—the fine art of Paubha style—a type of Newari religious painting. These art works were revered as experimental inventions in the field of Nepali painting. Those were the days when he was young and energetic, and was keep on discovering newer ways all the time.
What difference can we see in Uttam Nepali before and now? In his own experience, Uttam Nepali today doesn’t have the zeal, vigor, shrewdness and meditative quality he had before. His waning memory and deteriorating health condition are, in a day, pulling him away from art and creativity. Instead, all his memories have slowly left him, leaving him in solitude and loneliness.
There is no marked difference between the artist and academician Uttam Nepali, and the one others know. He is emotional, thoughtful and romantic all the time. Eating, drinking, enjoying and at times conversing in verses are his trademark habits. In the history of Nepali painting he has a dazzling name. That very identity earned him a lot of fame, name and recognition. But this is not the only estimation of his creative pursuit and contribution. Uttam Nepali, such an exponent of experimental painting, cannot make any of such paintings today. At the moment, he lives in Boston, USA, far away from home.
He lived up to old age in Nepal. His long engagement with painting has earned for him a great name and fame today. For the past six decades, he completely devoted himself to the field of painting. He still holds the desire to pick up color, and create paintings on canvases. But he no longer retains the interest and zeal he had before.
Artist Nepali was born in Kathmandu in 1937 to father Bishnu Prasad Karmacharya and mother Ratna Devi Karmacharya. His grandparents have a business of their own in Lucknow, India. However, art was their real identity. They were included towards high-order painting, based on serious mental contemplations. In them, they created a world different form the visible world. They made different forms and structures of abstract art. They have several images of mysteries and their combinations.
Nepali is also a lyricist and actor. He is also a patron of music. In 2004, his poetry collection Uttam Nepalika Kavitharu was published. He is an elegant artist who sometimes wove others’ poetry in his painting, and some other times drew portraits of poets. He makes art while writing and poetry while speaking. He is also an interpreter of philosophy. He is such a well-versed man in speaking. Amicable and jolly, he is also quite stern, if there is a need to be. Yet, aloof from anger and indignation, his has always been a happy one. But sadly, he can no longer recall those joyous and creative days.
While in America, he had heart strokes three times. While in the hospital, he was unhappy seeing bare walls of the hospital and wanted to paint something on them. He returned to Nepal and was preparing to resume his work in his own art studio when his health betrayed him, and he returned to the US again. He still has unfulfilled plans to work in newer projects in art.
With an extraordinary sense of experiencing the taste of life and beauty in art, Nepali is one of Nepal’s most exponential artists. He says, people have no started feeling the presence of beauty in abstract art work and appreciating the bliss it gives. In abstract art, observers can have their own understanding and interpretation, and artist Nepali accepts the idea that it is a personal experience of everyone.
He says, “Beauty is the capacity to derive enjoyment from things.”