It is rare to catch a familiar artist in the act of turning from one mode of watching the world toward another of seeing new facets of their artistic selves and practices. Artists presented here are well-known to most patrons of the arts in Kathmandu, but the works displayed contain surprising new perspectives into how they are thinking and creating in this moment. Most urgency has been displaced by quiet meditation, wit is morphing into wisdom, and the vernacular of a new visual lyric is arising to arrest and surprise the attentive viewer. In these works, the political crosses path with the personal in neon letters, the personal becomes something public and celebratory with moments of play and participation, and everything also rises toward the historic and the mythic, as omnipresent as gods are in the detritus of our lives, and as ubiquitous as the silhouette of a tired, eternal cityscape.
