As if encapsulating one moment in the narrative, they speak of the middle, not the beginning or the end of the story. His black, bold outlines record bodies that appear to be both liberated and trapped. Most of them in profile with their bodies or heads turned sideways add flatness to the canvas. In their flowing hair, curled swaying poses and vacant eyes, the narrative of the known stories they refer to escapes them. They become reminiscences of a story that now stands for more than its morale. There’s a tussle between the religious connotation of the figures and the artist’s personal understanding of the universality of love and compassion.[break]
Although the colors in most of the paintings are murky as the figures are fore-grounded in a grayish mix of a turbulent landscape; they’re posed with a stillness which has a calming effect. In the black abundance of their unbraided hair, there’s mystery and charm. They could be in a trance dancing with ecstasy or even mourning the effect of an after doom. Their elongated faces and eyes with white, smooth lips reproduced in each canvas speak of a similarity of experience. As the artist puts it and the title of the exhibition itself suggests, it’s the experience of love; its celebration. There’s love in longing and waiting, in surrendering and even in proving ones’ worth to a loved one.
Every event in the canvas is marked by love in the form of a white wisp that sometimes transforms into a plant, a leaf or balls of little clouds that appear to be passing by. It binds the paintings into a category formulated by Bangel as, ‘love in colors.’ In explaining his effort he says, “Whatever progress we make, it’s only love that will save humanity at the end of the day and that’s why a lot of my paintings celebrate love.”
His romantic explanation of the figurative drawings that portray love clarifies why even in their rhythmic postures, sometimes the figures become controlled. They become submissive to the theme. In ‘Devotion’, however where Hanuman is shown tearing his heart out to show Ram and Sita inside it, Bangel makes an exception. Hanuman’s agony is painted in horror and devotion, his mouth open in unease. This boldness in reverting the narrative and demureness of the figures enrobed in love would have been more interesting to see in other figures.
There’s also the repetition of themes that mark our cultural lives like the stories of Krishna and other Hindu Gods. But the artist explains his love for depicting them as seeking refuge in spirituality through art. He wants his artworks to be a healer for himself and his audience. And he believes in preserving Nepali folklore and tradition through its enrichment by giving it a modernist perspective.
So the paintings stand on the threshold of legends and their modern questioning. They do depict Siddhartha and Krishna but in a different light. Along the array of paintings, there are known and unknown figures that are serenely introspecting on their plights as they coil and bundle into themselves. The pupils of their eyes only emerge in some of them like precursors to enlightenment. There’s the spark of divinity in their bodies evoked through the buoyancy of the blue that’s used to color them but they fumble with their powers. These are monoscenic narratives evoked in tradition, painted with rumination.
(The exhibition will continue until July 4.)
The writer is a graduate of Arts & Aesthetics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. dikshyakarki@gmail.com
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