Jennifer, 28, who goes by Jen, first met Dumsi Mama five years back in 2004 while she was volunteering with The Umbrella Foundation, a non-governmental organization that works for trafficked children in rural areas of Nepal.
“When my time in Gurje was up after five months of volunteering and I was heading back home, Uncle Porcupine cried and I was shocked,” recalls Jen, a resident of San Francisco in California, USA. “Although he appears indifferent on the outside, he really is a soft-hearted person in the inside,” she adds, with a gleam in her eyes.
Uncle Porcupine was surely pleased when Jen came back a year later to Gurje to continue her work with the Foundation.
In his portrait by Jen, Uncle Porcupine has a slight smile on his face and looks right in our eyes. Her use of complimentary colors—purple and orange—is refreshing, and so are her rough, spontaneous gestural marks. The artist has developed Uncle Porcupine’s face with great care and detail but has left the spaces around the figure empty, and yet the drawing is complete in every sense. Uncle Porcupine is a beautiful drawing which reminds us of all elderly men in the villages of Nepal, but of course, Dumsi Mama himself didn’t show any signs of appreciation when Jen showed him his drawing.
“ ‘It’s okay’ was all he said, as if it didn’t matter,” says Jen, who knows that deep down, Dumsi Mama was happy, and continues, “It’s one my favorite drawings.” Well, Jen will be sad to part with it because it has it been bought by a visitor for Rs. 20,000. But the money will help her pay the rent for the gallery.
Jen, who graduated with a degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California College of Arts in San Francisco in 2004, put Nepali artists to shame by choosing to work on handmade traditional Lokta (daphne) paper. The ongoing exhibition of her works entitled “Feelings and Perceptions: Life in A Tamang Village” at the Indigo Gallery in Naxal of Kathmandu, is a collection of 23 works from the past year and a half. For her first solo show, Jen offers a commendable variety of two-dimensional artworks which range from watercolors and oil paintings to pastel and graphite (pencil) drawings.
“I think one of the differences that I’ve noticed in my own work since my student days is that I use a lot of mixed media now,” observes Jen, her eyes moving around the gallery. “Before, when I used to make a collage, the entire work used to be a collage; if it is was a charcoal drawing, it was limited to charcoal alone,” she explicates.
In her painting called “Mill Man,” Jen has used acrylic and oil paints along with pastels. Her brushstrokes are spontaneous and loose, while her use of pastels seems more controlled and rigid.
It is apparent why Jen is inspired by Egon Schiele, the Austrian figurative painter. Like Schiele’s drawings and paintings, Jen’s portraits are void of backgrounds and are filled with negative spaces. If there is a background, it is monochromatic, and lacks depth. The same goes for her collages which are either single-toned or patterned on Nepali paper.
“Depending on my mood, I work on landscapes, portraits, or still life,” puts in Jen. Walking around the gallery, the viewer will be taken aback by Jen’s abstract landscapes and decorative still-life paintings that are distant from her lively portraits. Although her landscapes are full of energy, it is clear the Jen’s forte is her portraits, which doesn’t come as a big surprise after learning about her art background.
“For my senior year project in college, I made 150 portraits of my dog,” she reveals with laughter. But truly making 150 portraits of the same subject is not a joke.
Jen has been renewing her visa time and again and doesn’t really know when she will head home.
“My friends are busy settling down and making money. But here I am, living with a minimum salary and I’m very content and happy,” she says.
Her carefree attitude is evident in her appearance—formal pants and a black jacket, paired with a casual converse.
When asked about her interaction with local Nepali artists, she says, “I haven’t met many because I live so far from the city. But since the opening of my show, I’ve been receiving many visiting cards and emails.”
“Feelings and Perceptions: Life in a Tamang Village” by Jennifer Fuller will remain open at Indigo Gallery, Naxal, till November 15.
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