The artist collective Aakrit, which will exhibit its work during the India Art Fair in February 2024, includes Hitesh Vaidya, Jagdish Moktan, Nabina Sunuwar, Pooja Duwal, and Tashi Lama, all of whom have completed their Bachelors in fine arts from Kathmandu University in 2019, except for Sunuwar who completed her Masters in fine arts from Tribhuvan University in 2022. The group was formed to bring together the artists’ varied approaches to observe and reflect on the stories around them. “Our shows are a culmination of our attempts to understand our influences, connect through common experiences and narrate our perceptions,” they say. While the collective has a common mission statement and outlook stylistically; they are different in their individual approaches.
Vaidya looks into the personal through objects, memorabilia, architecture and “communal memory”. His formats reference miniature paintings but he brings his personal touch to it alongside other still and moving images that he has referenced from his family archive, including videos of his home and family. Not all of his memories are easy to see in the miniature format, but close inspection shows the playful and childlike joy with which he recalls days spent atop the trees, collecting fruit, running away from admonishment or pleading with his grandmother to ride the slides. There are also tributes to tie-dye craftspersons and various other memories that he recollects from oral family stories.
Lama revisits his family profession of carpet weaving through meticulous reference drawings, small and large format paintings, graphic prints and poetry. He attempts to capture the sense of loss his father, mother and maternal uncle feel within the industry, which they believe has not been given its due importance. Without sentimentalisation, he brings a strong voice to his ancestral practice, using a mix of Buddhist Thangka motifs as well as pop-culture and urban street art.
Currently Duwal is focused on figurative oil painting, closely studying people to capture their essence, surroundings and her emotional interpretation of the scene. Recently she has been engaging in plein-air painting where she sits on-site and documents her subjects live. She creates large-format paintings as well as smaller close studies and she has worked in oil and charcoal. She is currently exploring using text in her work, adding random English and Nepali, treated as if it were a drawing. The heritage city of Bhaktapur and Duwal’s personal life are her principal references. Her approach is layered with a sense of femininity and gentleness, which contrasts well with the other masculine voices of Aakrit.
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Family photographs, 2022, graphite on linen, Jagdish Moktan Image: Courtesy of Aakrit Collective -
Whispering Memories V, 2022, Relief Print, Nabina Sunuwar Image: Courtesy of Aakrit Collective
Moktan explores the idea of home from both a personal and community perspective, as well as themes of belonging and the ambivalence of the human condition. His approach involves both gestural abstraction and action painting as well as the incorporation of new-media references and imagery. Portraits of his father and imagery from the covers of his communist books form an important part of his iconography.
Sunuwar approaches the idea of home through a demanding and time-consuming process where imagery is collected and translated through the printmaking process. She evokes the memory of her home’s architecture, surrounding vegetation and mood and reflects on a fractured sense of belonging. She seeks to trace the link between her current residence in Kathmandu and her ancestral home in Okhaldhunga. The works carry with them a sense of melancholy.
The Chaudhary Foundation—a social initiative of the multinational conglomerate Chaudhary Group, which is headquartered in Nepal—is behind bringing Aaktrit’s work to India, supporting the artists’ work through financial aid as well as mentorship. Surabhi Chaudhary, the founding director, plans to help showcase Aaktrit’s work at various locations outside Nepal.