“I’m
somebody who has to paint every day, and before Covid, my studio was in
Hattisar. But during the lockdown, I couldn’t paint cause there was nothing at
home. I’d never felt so lost before,” she recalls, adding that she somehow
arranged for some canvases and paints to be brought over at home so she could
paint. Now, Pramila doesn’t take any chances. She paints wherever she can.
Looking around the quaint studio, the body of work she has
painted over the years is impressive. Paintings adorn almost every wall there
is; big and small canvases are piled up, leaning against each other, hoping for
some recognition—some movement.
And
most paintings have one thing in common—Pramila’s women. Long, elongated,
androgynous faces; above them lie sharply drawn eyes that know every little of
your secret and, of course, the thin, modest lips that are at once a smile and
a frown. These women are what drew me to Bajracharya’s studio. Their faces are
so elusive one can’t help but wonder what they are thinking or feeling. “Do you
know the painting ‘Three Girls’ by Amrita Sher-Gil?” I ask her. It’s easy to
notice some parallels in both artists’ work because the women in their
paintings are beautiful yet melancholic. “I’ve heard of her but never seen the
painting,” she says as I show her the painting on my phone.
“But
why women?” I prod. “I don’t know. I just do. I can’t help it,” she says,
smiling. In 1994, Bajracharya recalls visiting Patan to draw and sketch with
the newly formed Kasthamandap Art Group. Midst all the architectural marvels,
the movement and the chaos, somehow, Pramila was always attracted to the women.
“The Newa women wearing haku-patasi,
the way their body curves carrying gagris on
their waist. There was something so intoxicating about it,” she says.
I’m still not satisfied with her answer. A mere appreciation for
the feminine form doesn’t explain why the entire studio is filled with the
elusive gazes of Pramila’s women. I ask her about her childhood. “My father
brought me up like a boy,” she says. Growing up in a business family in Wangot
Tole, Gahabal, in Lalitpur, her father was a strict man. He made jewellery. “My
sisters used to stay home and work. But he always sent me out to collect money
from our buyers.”
Pramila
is the fifth child. She has four older sisters and one young sister, and two
brothers after her. I point out that perhaps her parents must have wanted a
son. “Well, that was what society was like back then,” she says.
Except
for her eldest sister, all the siblings in the family completed their
education. “I was already good at drawing, so my father agreed to send me to
art school,” she says, revealing how she got into the Lalit Kala Campus in
1993. “But art was still secondary at home. I could only leave after I finished
all the chores,” she says.
Pramila’s passion for art was often a topic of disagreement
between her and her father. As she neared her mid-twenties, the pressure to get
married was surmounting heavily. “There were days I’d come home late after my
classes and studio work and get into an argument with my father,” she recalls. “Sani used to bring me dinner whenever I
refused to eat.”
“Who’s sani?” Pramila’s face lights up. “Sani was a young girl who used to work
for my family. She was one of my earliest muses. I wonder where she is now,” she
says.
From
how Pramila speaks of her past, despite the hardships, it feels like it was a
simpler and more pleasant time. She was part of the Kasthamandap group—started
by Prashant Shrestha. Well-known artist Erina Tamrakar is her contemporary and
friend. “I knew getting married would restrict me from becoming somebody. So, I
held on for as long as possible,” she says.
Pramila
has indeed come a long way. Her art career started back in 1991 with her show
at the Goethe Institute. Since then, she’s participated in over 100 group
exhibitions. She also has had fourteen solo exhibitions: more notable ones
being ‘Images of Landscapes’ at
“My
women series are popular, but I’m also drawn to landscapes and city spaces,”
she tells me. Her scapes are abstract—I can make out a faint hint of windows
and electricity poles from the paintings she’s now showing me. “At night, it’s
the silhouette of the buildings or the shape of the windows we see. We don’t
have to draw something just as it is,” she says.
I ask her if her mood ever affects the colour palette of her
works. “Oh, absolutely. Just look at the painting I drew during the lockdown,”
she points to the wall behind me. Pramila’s women are there, but this time some
have masks on their faces. And the blue is darker and moody. One thing about
Pramila’s paintings is that the light is natural, and her colours are sombre
and calm. I sensed a hint of abstract impressionism in her scapes. “Yes, when I
first showed my paintings to a colleague, he told me my works reminded him of
Paul Gauguin,” she recalls. “At the time, I didn’t even know what impressionism
or post-impressionism was. I just drew instinctively.”
Pramila’s
fervour for art took her far (and continues to), more so than her female
contemporaries. But at the age of 30, she finally gave in. In 2002, she got
married to a doctor. As of now, she has a teenage daughter who wants to follow
in her mother’s footsteps. “My husband was very supportive, so I could continue
painting even after marriage,” she says. But surely, it couldn’t have been
easy. A Nepali woman wears many hats—one of a daughter, a wife, a
daughter-in-law and all these hats somehow end up crushing the one that we
actually want to wear. “Of course, I want to do more. I wish I could’ve done more.
But I don’t look back in regret,” she says.
The
same thing can be said about Pramila’s women. They are trapped in a
four-cornered canvas, limited in form, their faces unrevealing. And yet, there
is grace. There is warmth, pleasantness, and acceptance. Because like art
historian Yasodhara Dalmia writes of Sher-Gil’s ‘Three Girls’ “Women for her were not sensual products of
nature, but rather those who had suffered great handicaps and were capable of a
brave new world. Amrita’s (and perhaps Pramila’s) women were those who were
aware of their forlorn fate but also knew that they were capable of
transcending it.” And one can’t help but agree.
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