His solo art exhibition was inaugurated on Wednesday, June 8 at the Chai Chai Gallery in Pulchowk.[break]
Present at the program was USAID Mission Director Dr Kevin Rushing who inaugurated the event.
For this one-month art exhibition, Mike Lilly teamed with Animal Nepal, an organization that reaches out to stray dogs, cows and donkeys, as well as Sangkalpa/Pledge Nepal, an educational program set up for disadvantaged children.
The show sponsored by Chai Chai Café and Gallery will have the proceeds from the sale of the displayed artworks go to both of these organizations.
The paintings put up on the show are striking and highlight the interaction between humans and animals.
Lilly thinks that as soon as you label a painting, you narrow it. So he approaches his paintings impulsively, without putting any label to it.
He completed his work for this exhibition in two months.
“My paintings are action art which is spontaneous. But it also took a lot of patience to complete them,” he says.
“My own belief in life is to respect everyone and everything. Through my work, I try to portray the innocent beauty of children and the interaction, or lack of interaction, between animals and humans. So through my paintings, I want to express the need to stop the exploitation of animals and children,” says the painter.
The artist says that he got inspired by the work of his wife, Shushma Maharjan, at Animal Nepal.
“Animals are everywhere here. I’ve seen the after effects of the mistreatment to dogs and cows, and I think we need to take charge of the growing population of street dogs as well.”
The artist who feels a strong connection with the animals says that he keeps a pack of dog treats, and when going for morning walk evening walks every day, he distributes them.
“One day, I woke up and noticed a stray cow just outside my window. An hour later, I was drawing her. It’s like a magical connection,” he says.
He thinks that people don’t need to push themselves or be friends with animals if they don’t want to, but at least they don’t have to go out of their way to be mean and mistreat them.
Mike Lilly has his exhibitions held before in New York City, San Francisco, California, and Poland, to name a few locations and his selected group exhibition was also held in Nepal. A former art instructor, he was also a service learning educator. He was involved in it back in America which he thinks is relatively a new concept.
“It’s about teaching children and young people how to serve and grow and learn. It’s about taking a plan and doing something for people, animals and environment. It’s not a community service but a learning process,” he says. This is what he came here to do and he’s been settled in Nepal for the last three years.
“It’s through my drawings and writings and presentations that I want to send positive messages among the people here on the need to address the issues of mistreatment of children and animals,” he concludes.
Pramada Shah, Vice President of Animal Nepal, said that Mike Lilly wanted to do an exhibition and offered to help the organization.
“We were on the lookout for not only international contributors but locals as well. Since the theme was also on animals and for a good cause, we wanted to make people aware through the medium of art,” she added.
The exhibition will be held till July 4.
Related story
Ninth National Art Exhibition in photographs
_20191222200001.jpg)
