The creativity of an artist has no boundaries. She has a vivid memory of a teacher who had once said, “Art is for life and life is for art.” From the year 1978 to the year 2023, she has been constantly active in the Nepali art scene and has participated in numerous exhibitions and is making her name more and more popular. The Artist Ragini Upadhyay Grela is showcasing her art-works at the Nepal Art Council’s gallery as a retrospective of her journey of four and half decade.
What could an artist create during the journey of his entire life? Most of them experiment with their own ideas, and just like a flowing river, they keep on moving from one avenue of creativity to another. Just as life, the creative journey of the artist Ragini was not easy. She used to see society and the social norms that suppressed the females as second sex, a problem. In her initial works of around 1978-1982, when she was pursuing her studies at the Lucknow College of Arts, she began her practice making quick sketches. Even in her initial stage, one can see the human emotions that have been well portrayed in them.
It was Sangeeta Thapa, the director of Siddhartha Art gallery who took a vehement challenge to show-case Ragini’s entire career in a single place. In order to exhibit such a range of art-works spanning four and half decade, the floor area of Siddhartha Art Gallery was not enough. She needed to look for a bigger space, thus the idea of exhibition got materialized at the Nepal Art Council gallery.
When the visitors are observing the art-works exhibited, they cannot but thank the art gallery that organized such an event. “In the beginning, I was really intrigued by the subject matters she chose in her prints. Whenever I used to visit her home, I could see her artwork in every corner. The artist’s entire life-time is a study for many scholars. Thus in the coming days, I am thinking of doing retrospective of other veteran artists of Nepal as well, ” Ms. Thapa thinks.
Jay Krishna Agrawal, the former Principal of the Lucknow College of Arts, believes that the works of Ragini is famous not only in Nepal, but also in various parts of the world. In the initial days, when this octogenarian teacher was then teaching the print-making, he had seen ample amount of potential in Ragini. In his long life, the teacher believed that along with the formal education, the emotions as well as the sensitivity of an artist play a pivotal role in the making of an artist successful. He had already presumed in those days that, ‘this young lady would not limit her creativity only as a print-maker, but would explore in other areas such as canvas.’ He was not wrong; Ragini has explored various themes, subject matters and art mediums in her creative styles.
During the time frame of forty-five years, she did not stick herself in one particular style of expression. With time, she kept on experimenting from one subject matter to another. For example: from the serious and grave subjects of female identity, she has covered the time-wheel, political odyssey, Buddha, love, nature, motherhood and the ashes as her theme in the paintings. She is also a former Chancelor of Nepal Academy of Fine Arts ( NAFA).
As her subject matter changes from time to time, she is also keeping up constantly show-casing art-works in Nepal and various parts of the world. The lady with a unique personality, Ragini during her artistic career has also been experimenting with her face. On her fore-head, in her initial days, she used to wear snakes, after a while she made a trident of Shiva, and these days, she has been wearing the symbol of sun in a creative style. Thus when some-one meets her these days, he finds her as someone radiant as the bright and warm sun itself.
Dr. Abhi Subedi, the retired professor and academician and an art-lover as well, has contributed with an article in the catalogue of Ragini’s works in Vol. 1. He believes that the expression of pain and suffering of human beings in art is an important subject matter. He further quotes T.S Eliot, who believed that, ‘the man who suffers and the mind which creates are separate.’ Most of the artists in the western world narrated the subject matters such as wars, love in their own style. Similarly, Ragini has expressed herself with the motifs, metaphors, figurality, color combination and strong brushstrokes in canvasses.
With so wide range of art-works covering varying the subject-matters to be show-cased in a single building was a challenge in itself, but the curator Pratima Thakali took the challenge and has executed it well. Ms. Thakali, who is also an art-teacher at the Kathmandu University, is an artist herself. She has very sensibly arranged the placements of the canvasses and receiving kudos from the visitors. One of the visitors and an art lover, Pradip Subedi says, “I really like the way the paintings are kept in the exhibition. Keeping the works of her initial days on the ground-floor, the more sensitive issue of the artist’s life and her differing expression in the first floor and her political satires in the second floor is a good idea. I really like the way that the walls of the council has been painted for this particular exhibition. Each and every painting is arranged in such a way that it is not congested and has a breathing space in between.”
Ms. Thakali and her colleagues told our team, the Khojpatra that they had spent numerous sleepless nights in order to bring about the exhibition in this way. They are also grateful to have this opportunity to showcase the art-works of such a veteran artist like Ragini.
This exhibition began on March the 8th, on the day of International women’s day and was inaugurated by the President of Nepal Bidhya Devi Bhandari and will continue on display until 22nd of March at the Nepal Art Council.
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