The Depths Below

He says that he was painfully shy while in school. The shyness remains even today, but one can safely say, is no cause for pain. However, as far as early impressions go, no one would describe Asha as a shy person. At first sight, the 34-year-old artist, and one of the founder members of the famous Kasthamandap Art Studio, oozes quiet confidence and cool composure. Nevertheless, scratch the surface and one begins to get a glimpse into the true persona of a man who is now increasingly being regarded as an artist blazing a brave new trail in the country’s art scene.

And a glimpse is all one gets, unfortunately. No matter how much one tries, it is well nigh impossible to fathom Asha R Dangol. One does get the feeling that the neatly bearded artist is not unduly ruffled by this. In fact, he appears to be quite happy to play possum and let his colourfully rendered canvases speak for him. At the same time, one cannot escape the gnawing thought that the shyness that was cause for so much pain when a child, seems to have been transformed now into more or less, a stiff and beneath-the-surface aggression. This aggression, which may not be obvious even to Asha himself, let alone to others, is to the more astute observer, quite apparent in the way he responds to external stimuli. A sort of veiled response. Apparent also in the way his artistic endeavours have progressed through the years. To say that it has been a rapid progression would be somewhat of an understatement.

Although he has had only four solo exhibitions, this shortcoming, if it can be called that,  is easily explained by the fact that he has exhibited much more often as part of the group. As an individual, he has a never ending admiration for Picasso and his own works can be said to be quite honestly so influenced. But the way he is going, and the changes he is not afraid of experimenting with, are reason enough to predict that someday soon Asha will come upon a style that will make him cry ‘Eureka!’. He says that he swore his dedication to art, while still an art student, after he first exhibited two figurative works in 1992 at the Srijana Art Gallery in the ‘Human Happiness Art Exhibition’.  However, for the first three years after passing out from Fine Arts Campus, he, along with other members of Kasthamandap Art Studio, painted and sold postcards. “We used to go shop to shop in the tourist areas to sell our postcards,” he recounts.

In 1995, Asha participated for the first time in the 26^th National Art Exhibition, and states that he has done so in every one after that. In 2006, his painting, ‘Tantrik Prem’, won the first prize in the contemporary art section. Asha Dangol is persevering, one has to hand him that. Today, Kasthamandap Art Studio has its studios in Sanepa, Lalitpur, although Asha reveals that his group was the first to rent studio space in the National Association of Fine Arts (NAFA) premises back in 1996. Below his studio in Sanepa, a room holds a row of computers on which at any given moment, one will see some of the Kasthamandap associates at work. “From noon to five we do work involving graphic design,” says Asha. “Previously this work was quite rewarding, and we had a steady flow of assignments to design things like brochures and booklets, but not so now.” A room to the side is for conducting art classes, another regular activity of the group. Well, yes, art by itself is still not an all consuming affair it seems. Asha agrees, “Art alone is not sustaining, therefore we do other work.” Even as he says this, the bearded artist appears to have another thought and says, “What I really want to do now is to totally devote myself to art.” The way he puts it, it can be taken as a moment of realization. Realization that to reach the lofty heights he aims to reach as an artist, he cannot be any less than wholly involved.

This is perhaps one more such instance, among quite a few in the artist’s life, when he has had a new awareness thrust upon him. One instance had been, as mentioned before, in 1992, when he swore undying allegiance to art; the other instance was during the art workshop at the Osho Tapoban in Nagarjuna in 2004. Of this, he reveals, “Maybe it was the environment of the place but I do believe that this workshop was influential in bringing about later significant changes in my style.”

Asha loves to sing folk songs, and therefore it was only natural that his first solo exhibition held at the Siddhartha Art Gallery in January 2002 should have been called, ‘Folk Images of Nepal’. It was immediately after this that the simmering love affair between Asha and another Kasthamandap member, Erina Tamrakar, came to fruition. They married. Here, one is tempted to presume that perhaps the love affair must have been quite the silent one, in keeping with Asha’s nature. For the record, the arty couple have a baby boy today who is attending kindergarten. Keeping in tune with events, Asha says that, after marrying, he began to focus more on the female form and along with this, he says his lines began to change too. According to him, “The freedom of my lines reflected my own excitement and feelings.” Again, one cannot but suppose that this was perfectly understandable keeping in mind Asha’s innate shyness.

His second solo exhibition was at the Gallery Moksh in March 2004. Titled, ‘Inside the Words’, the collection consisted of canvases in which Asha had incorporated Poet Manjul’s stanzas from his ‘Death Poem’ series. In 2005, his third solo, ‘Folk Fusion’, was held at the Siddhartha Art Gallery again, and of this, he says, “It was a very satisfying event because it was really well organized.” This year, ‘The Scream’ was exhibited at The Art Shop in June. This, then, completes the total of four solo exhibitions he has had upto now. Not many, it must be said. But hold your horses, if one were to go by quality alone, these four solos are indicative enough that Asha is not treading new paths, but rather, rampaging down the same.

‘Inside the Words’ was a complete turn around from his earlier ‘Folk Images of Nepal’, and ‘Folk Fusion’ was again very different from ‘Inside the Words’. So one would have obviously been expectant of ‘The Scream’ as likely to put on view a new side of the artist. But, not so. Asha Dangol actually seems to have found a certain niche with ‘Folk Fusion’ and, yes, this collection could almost have been cause for a ‘Eureka!’. Therefore, it is no surprise that ‘The Scream’ too is along the same lines as ‘Folk Fusion’. Whatever the case may be, these later works by Asha Dangol are clearly demonstrative of an artist of élan. Not that such élan had not been evident before in the many group shows of Kasthamandap Art Studio held within and outside the country, the latest of which was ‘Reflections of Reality’ in San Francisco this April. About this recent tour, Asha remarks, “There must be about 8000 artists in that city alone, and over a hundred galleries. Needless to say, it’s not easy to make one’s mark there.”

Most definitely, Asha’s trips abroad during the group shows, including to places like Belgium, Sri Lanka, Holland, India and the USA, must have had good educative value. Inspirational value too, it seems, because in San Francisco Asha says that he was thrilled to visit the Picasso Gallery and says, “I must say that it was moving to see some of Picasso’s original works. And I must confess that it has had some influence on ‘The Scream’.” About another recent interest of Asha, that of ceramic art, one cannot say where the inspiration has come from, and how good he is at this, viewers can only judge in the near future because he is planning an exhibition soon.

Incidentally, NAFA first prize winner ‘Tantrik Prem’ was from what Asha describes as, the ‘Black Series’. Some other similar paintings still hang around in his studio but surprisingly, the ‘Black Series’ has never been exhibited. One reason for this could be, as the artists says, “Because many of my works have been bought by collectors before they could be collected for an exhibition.” Well, it does seem that Asha Dangol is developing, or already has, a loyal following including regular collectors. Which, one must say, is what would be of immense importance to Asha to enable him to live upto his latest resolve – that is - to devote himself completely to art and art only.