Bidhata KC (Nepal)
Residency time: March 2020
I am a visual artist from Nepal (BFA and MFA from Tribhuvan University). For my works on paper, prints, and multimedia installations, I draw my inspiration from Mother Nature, often traveling far and wide, following the creative muse. It could be said that I am on a quest to find meanings in the objects – natural and human made – that surround me. My work is a reflection of those hidden meanings of life. For instance, I was inspired by how empty tin cans were used by people in Manang and the Manslu region to create prayer wheels. This creative spark inspired my interactive installation called ‘Out of Emptiness’ which was staged in Venice, Italy. This installation embodied the journey of these hollow cans being transformed to a source of spirituality.
I have also found opportunities to address social issues through art. Aside from my many prints and paintings that focus in on the lives of women, another interactive installation project allowed me to use the metaphor and form of a jigsaw puzzle to question the objectification and stereotypical identity of women – in Nepali society but also in global societies more broadly.
It has been gratifying to be rewarded and recognized for my art. In 2010, I was the recipient of the prestigious Arniko National Youth Art Award, Nepal’s National Government Award for Excellence in Modern Art. My painting earned a Special Mention award at the 2011 National Fine Art Exhibition, and in 2013, I was awarded the Master Tej Bahadur Chitrakar Smriti Puraskar for the Best Painting/Artist Category. I have had seven solo exhibitions and participated in various group exhibitions and projects both nationally and internationally. My most recent exhibition, ‘A Decade in Art,’ was held in Kathmandu and celebrated many of the series of paintings and prints I have completed over the past ten years, most of them directly influenced by travels in my own country, and the ways I work to unearth meaning from that which surrounds me, especially natural forms.