It’s fair to say that I am an art person. I go where the art is. But here’s the thing, I don’t like art that’s too complicated and comes with too many abstract and hidden messages that need to be deciphered. Just like I like stories that even a sixth-grader can understand, I like art that speaks to everybody. Art that anybody can understand, one that hits close to home.

When I visited BFA Exhibition Project 2018, which just concluded at Nepal Art Council, I felt at home. I felt like I was somewhere I belonged, like the artists were really speaking to me. Every corner of every room in each floor had something on show that played to my heart strings. Isn’t that what art should be about?

I have been to other shows of KU Art Design and I had visited last couple of years’ graduation exhibition shows too; but I haven’t quite seen anything like this year’s show. This year, the BFA exhibit came to life with artworks done by the class of 2018, consisting of 25 students of KU School of Arts, who had either taken the graphic communication or the studio art approach to present their final year project.

If there’s one word that I can use to describe the exhibition, it is diverse, so wonderfully diverse. The works ranged from illustrated books to everyday utility objects such as bags and notebooks, and from fonts and cosplay costumes to life size paintings and sculptures. Every work was remarkable on its own. And if people have been raving about the show on social media, it is well deserved.

However, looking back, I do realise that there were few specific works that made me feel all sorts of uncomfortable by tapping deep into my conscience.

“It’s interesting how a majority of students, even though they worked independently of one another, shared common themes of depicting or representing ordinary objects and or places. And how that was often used as a vehicle of nostalgia, memory or everyday living/interaction,” said Ryan Horsack, a visual artist and a friend who had also visited the exhibition. I couldn’t agree more.

Priyanka Maharjan’s The Passage of Time and What Remains.

Nostalgia

There were three artists who made me stop and reflect on where my roots lie and where I stand today.

“Our memories are the foundation of who we are today. They are the layers of information, each level imparting different bits of details crucial to one’s consciousness. These pieces of information come to the surface and sometimes slowly fade away …” reads Priyanka Maharjan’s artist statement. I engaged with her work for quite some time. Her embroidery work done on images took me down my own memory lane. Her black and white family photos, the kind that we don’t see on Facebooks and Instagrams anymore, painted in colourful thread gave her work the quintessential retro vibe. It reminded me of how things were so different back when we didn’t know what smartphones are or when large-dish antennas were commonplace.

And then there was James Khati’s installations that really made one stop and reflect on how far we have come, and how it’s not necessarily a good thing. There was a clock whose hands moved backwards and spoke a lot about how even as we move forward, our memories and longings move in just the opposite direction. His works brought to the surface the emotions that I didn’t necessarily want to tap into. Mumbling to the Melody of Memorabilia, delved into nostalgia, and painfully so. “As time fades so do the objects and spaces. All that remains are the ruins and traces that start a new life of its own …” he says in the artist statement.

James Khati’s Mumbling to the Melody of Memorabilia.

Void and existentialism

The other theme that hit close to home was existentialism. While Pal Yeden Sherpa’s works on the Butterfly Effect, tried to put light on how everyday objects are transforming human experiences, they spoke volumes about the void. The way he presented everyday objects such as lighter, or scissors in their real-life sizes against a huge blank canvas—“personifying the objects and romanticising the space”—made me feel empty inside and made me question everything about how small my own existence is, and if it has any value at all.

Shreeti Prajapati’s Somewhere We Belong, was another work of art that felt close to the heart. Her works explored her intimate connection with and interpretation of everyday objects and everyday places through line illustrations. It spoke of how we, as humans, yearn to belong somewhere and to belong to something. How we yearn to connect every day, and more often than not fail. How we navigate everyday in search of something that we can call our own.

There were other many, many works that made me stop and feel so many different things. The BFA Exhibition Project 2018 was a show, which I believe, was one that everyone could relate to in one way or the other. It catered to audiences from all walks of life—even the ones that don’t necessarily have an artistic inclination, and if that is not a feat, what is? The class of 2018 is ready to pass on the baton to the next batch, but not without raising the bars up high. I can’t wait to see what the next batch of students have to show, hopefully the show only gets better every year from here on. v