Jhimmai is not just an exhibition-it is a quiet reckoning. Inside the galleries of the Nepal Art Council, three artistic voices converge around a single moment captured more than a decade ago: a woman seated in a modest tea shop in Suridobhan, Dolakha, her image unknowingly preserved by photographer Nabin Baral during a 2010 trek to Tsho Rolpa. That spontaneous photograph- which was not posed and was unnamed—would later become the heart of a deeply personal and multidisciplinary collaboration.
What unfolds in Jhimmai is a layered narrative told through photography, painting, and documentary film. Baral’s original color portrait offers the stillness of an instant; Bishnu Pariyar (Shree) reimagines it in painted form, infusing it with texture and emotion; and Radio Photo Patrika Sathi (RPPS) weaves it into a documentary journey-retracing steps, seeking the woman, and returning her image. The result is not merely a blend of mediums, but a conversation-between the artist and the subject, the moment and its echo, the seen and the forgotten.
Yet Jhimmai resists easy beauty. It pushes past the aesthetic to question the ethics of representation. When the team found the woman years later and gifted her the painting inspired by her image, her response was startling in its honesty:
“Take this back. It neither speaks nor gives me anything to eat. What am I supposed to do with this?”
Her words pierced the romanticism often wrapped around art. She did not see a tribute. She saw a reminder of what art cannot offer—sustenance, security, relief. In that moment, art and life collided, and Jhimmai transformed from a creative homage into a reflection on disparity. She remained unnamed, her story untold-until now, when her absence becomes presence, and her reality confronts the lens that once overlooked it.
The exhibition invites not admiration, but reflection. It offers no illusions. Instead, it asks: What responsibility does art carry when it draws from real lives? What is owed to the people who inspire, even unknowingly?
As the curatorial note states, “There’s a sweetness in the smile, but also the saltiness of sweat. Within colorful images live faded truths.” These truths rise quietly through the halls of the gallery-not in grandeur, but in the tension between image and reality.
RPPS, the third voice in this triad, gives that tension its full dimension. Their documentary lens doesn’t simply document- it witnesses. Through their storytelling, we trace not only the return of an image but the deeper, unanswered question:
When art takes, what does it return?
In Jhimmai, beauty is not the destination but the truth is.
Jhimmai runs until June 21, 2025, and remains open from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM daily. Entry is free and open to all.
Title: “Jhimmai” Exhibition Opens at Nepal Art Council, Babarmahal
Date of Opening: June 19, 2025
Exhibition Dates: June 19–21, 2025
Venue: Nepal Art Council, Babarmahal, Kathmandu
Time: 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Leave A Comment