Contemporary Nepali Artist : Ishan Pariyar
Gallery Introduction by Sangeeta Thapa
In 2013, I was invited to inaugurate Ishan Pariyar’s exhibition “Better than Bitter”at Patan Museum.
Hailing from Pokhara, his work focused on the grave issue of climate change and the lives at peril at the
foothills of the beguiling Fishtail Mountain. I was struck by the way Ishan used an organic form – the
bitter gourd – to narrate the bitter realities of both nature and life. Even the characters in his paintings
were imbued with the coarse blistery skin of a bitter gourd.
Inspired by Ishan’s personal story – I learnt that love for the arts began early and he was lucky to have
teachers and a principal who recognized his talent. Between2000-2006, he worked as Office Secretary
at the Pokhara Sub Metropolitan Gallery where he had the opportunity to be mentored by Pokhareli
artists Buddhi Gurung, Durga Baral and Sunil Sigdel. In 2007, Ishan moved to Kathmandu and enrolled at
the Lalitkala Academy where he eventually completed his BFA and MFA from Tribhuvan University
Central Department of Fine Arts. A year after the Great Earthquakes of 2015, he married his peer and
sweetheart, the artist Sabita Dangol. It has been interesting to follow their work and to note the intra
exchange of ideas and imagery.
After the earthquakes in 2015, news of sacred artifacts being smuggled out of Nepal made headlines.
This news was particularly painful as Nepal has been trying to repatriate her stolen artifacts from
museums and private collections abroad. Ishan now a resident of Kathmandu, and a witness of the city’s
brutal expansion, has seen heritage monuments and old settlements being dismantled to make way for
new urban developments. The artist highlights that each old brick represents a world of existence –
time, beauty, piety, artistry, skill and a labor of love. Thus, faith, culture and identity are central to the
artist’s work. In his seminal work Where are we heading? the artist places precious temples and
monuments on a boat, or an ark, to save them from the deluge of an ever burgeoning city.
Early human settlements were situation along river deltas. In this Valley where the rivers have run dry or
become putrid, Pariyar’s aqueous series reminds us of the fact all of the rivers that traverse through
Kathmandu are named after Goddesses. Though our sacred texts ask us to respect the rivers, lakes and
oceans, human greed has polluted these water bodies – thus the rivers are timeless repositories of a
time past, time present and future. Ishan links Kathmandu valley with the city of Pokhara where the
sacred temple of Taal Barahi is situated at the centre of the Phewa Taal lake. Each pilgrim makes a
journey by boat to reach this shakti sthal or sacred space, circumambulating the temple with a myriad
hopes and dream. Thus the journey becomes a microcosm of life itself, frozen in the flow of time, as
each pilgrim plies their boats on the symbolically eternal waters that are churned by bitter sweet desires
and aspirations. Pariyar’s paintings depict the parallel journey that the Gods themselves embark upon ,
as each pilgrim carries an image of a sacred being in their hearts – the boat, the mind/heart, time and
the divine metamorphose into one and these waters and time become the nourishing space for these
spiritual transitions. There are there multiple voyages in Pariyar’s paintings: do the Gods make their own
independent journeys on these waters fraught with human or divine culpabilities? Are they the
guardians of time or mute observers channeling their energy to make us preserve that which we hold
precious and sacred for the future generation. There is no doubt that Ishan’s beautiful and thought
provoking series current series asks many pertinent questions.
Founder / Director / Curator
