The visual artist, famous for his folk art, has been exploring into different territories. During the three-day Nepal-Bangladesh Art Camp on the hills of Nagarkot in 2009, he ventured into geographical landscape paintings.
His current series has taken this venture to another level. He informs Republica that his initial paintings for the series were drawn with a bird’s eye view of the cascades, slopes, and landslides in the hilly regions.
The later part of the collection, which has apparently dominated the series, was imagined with a viewpoint he had during his air travels. With a dominant use of green and blue hues, these paintings call to mind some geographical maps, oceans, and even abstract images.
“I’ve tried to paint landscapes without any figures, keeping it void of typical landscape figures like houses, or rivers.” Dangol informs.
Though the series has taken a different subject matter from his traditional figurative paintings, it still echoes his previous works with the bold use of many different colors on a single canvas.
While some paintings present vivid images of green islands and blue oceans, some have more introspective presentations. The viewer will notice that many paintings in the series have the images of the half portion of a human mask sketched in the colorful background. In one of his paintings, a number of these half silhouettes seem buried between the slopes, evoking a sense of an environmental responsiveness.
“Though I shifted to painting landscape for the series, it was difficult for me not to add human characters or human feelings,” puts in Dangol, when asked about his repetitive use of the masks.
Unlike his previous paintings, he has considerably experimented with white spaces amidst his colorful mixtures. While the darker hues in some paintings have meshed into the harmony of the soothing greens and blues, in some paintings it creates a contrasting effect of corrosion and ruins.
The series initially seems concentrated on landscapes through aerial perspectives. But many of his paintings have drifted away from just landscapes to aerial perspectives of broader phenomena – with half masks and abstract human figures merged between the colors.
Dangol’s “Aerial Perspective” will be on display at the venue till March 27.
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