BFA Exhibition Project 2016, an exhibition featuring the artworks by the graduating class of the Kathmandu University School of Arts, Center for Art and Design, is currently on at Nepal Art Council in the Capital. The exhibit started on July 24, Sunday.

The exhibit features artworks by a total of 22 student-artists, with the artworks being based on studio art and graphic communication form.

The motifs the artworks on display evoke are broad and diverse. The exhibition doubles up as both the final projects of the student-artists while also providing a glimpse into the psyche and the imagination of the next generation artists who are aspiring to make it big in the Nepali art scene.

At the exhibition, a man’s head with a tree growing out of it welcomes the onlookers. The tree’s roots spreading down through the man’s neck, its branches pointing to every which direction—and all of it cast against the backdrop of a cloudy sky. This is one of Amrit Karki’s paintings. The man in question is the artist himself. Karki’s art, titled Persistence, deal with the self and art of perception. (“I have selected elements that come from the subliminal and the astonishing, both of which arise from highly individualistic acts of perception,” states the artist’s statement.)

While Amrit explores his own sense of perception through his art, another artist Shyam Prajapati returns back to his roots. Prajapati plies his art on pottery, arranged in an array at the exhibit. The exhibit is strange, however: They are labeled with the names of popular international brands—Coca cola, Bajaj, Heineken, United, Tuborg, etc. The pottery is a traditional, local art form, but the labels they boast are global. His artistic statement regarding his creation offers up his concerns: “The application of foreign tags in my work…is to voice my frustration against the diminishing traditional skills and knowledge. It is important to preserve these traditional skills, as these are the testimony of our cultural heritage.”

Like Karki and Prajapati, 20 other aspiring artists have used this platform to showcase their talent and the diverse ways in which they see the world.

The BFA exhibition is now an annual, and much-awaited, exhibit in the Capital. This year’s iteration is slated to run through Wednesday, July 27.