Welcome to my studio

Studio Visits have been a very important part of my practice because these intimate gatherings are where I get to share my new works as they develop. I love sharing my process and also introducing people to a new side of Kathmandu, home, a place my heart and work are deeply attached to. Due to the spread of the virus, I have created this page so I can continue to provide insight into my thoughts and processes behind my current works.

Come in!

At the moment, I have been working on a painting series called Home.

When the crisis began and people began to realize they would be stuck indoors for a long time, everybody wanted to be home.For me, flying back to Nepal to my parents’ place didn’t feel like a good option because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to come back as I assumed the travel restrictions would only grow. Right now, I miss home. I want to be surrounded by the comfort of home when the world feels like it is ending.

In my painting series Home, I repeatedly paint the first letter of the Nepali alphabet Against blue backgrounds. Blue feels calming to me and it is also the color of the sky everywhere in the world. I believe that we are all in this together; all of us want to be home.

Unlike most of my paintings, I did not paint a word or phrase as Im finding it hard to come up with a message or a mantra during these turbulent times.

So I turned to writing the same letter over and over again with as much precision as I could. To paint each letter I held my breathe at the same points every time to get an even pressure on certain parts of the letter and this process became a meditation.

Repetition took the feeling of uncertainty away and welcomed a feeling of familiar comfort...just like home.

Home 1, Home 2 24”X24” Acrylic on wood panel 2020

Repetition relieves uncertainty

In my Home series, I paint the first letter of the Nepali alphabet. It is the first letter I ever learned how to write as a child so painting something this familiar comes very naturally to me. I don’t have to consciously think about what I’m painting and this frees up space in my mind to think about how I’m painting the letter instead.

Pursuing perfection with every letter means breathing the exact same way through out the process to apply the same amount of pressure on my brush each time. Repetition relieves uncertainty and in this way my painting process becomes my meditation.

After making several paintings repeating letters on blue surfaces, I started to think about other associations to home. Fabrics help paint a more tactile picture of home for me.

The silk brocades around Tibetan thangka paintings reminds me of festivities in Kathmandu - parades, local dances for deities and other festival rituals all use this fabric.

Farbics seen in various festival rituals in Kathmandu, Nepal

I first used the silk brocade last year at my show Mindful Mandalas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Mindful Mandalas, 10ftX30ft, Mixed Media on wall, 2019

Since then, I have wanted to bring the fabrics to my paintings. So I packed the silk brocades up in my suitcase and brought them back from Kathmandu. I’m currently painting them here in my studio in Boston. This is where I am at with them right now…feeling closer to home.