Art is an external expression of internal discoveries: thoughts, dreams, advocacies and emotions of artists. The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.
It is natural for humans to make every attempt to escape the not-so-fond memories of the past and move forward. However, no matter how hard we try, some of them continue to bother us. Perhaps this is where art comes in handy. While most run from their history, artists embrace it. And in their work, you see a reflection of the entire society. Nepali Artist Erina Tamrakar, is no different.
This immensely talented Visual artist is making a proper mark on the current art scene. Erina Tamrakar is the one who bring a myriad of visual culture influences to her fine art practice.
Erina Tamrakar ( b. 1970 ) is a visual artist with a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Her paintings have focused on women and their relationships that convey a strong commentary on society and her surroundings.
She is the co-founder of Kasthamandap Art Studio and E-Arts Nepal. In addition to many solo exhibitions in Nepal and Korea, her works have been exhibited in many national and international galleries since 1990 including France, Tibet, India, Sri Lanka, South Korea, USA, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Dubai and Bhutan.
In 2008, she received a fellowship from Korea National University of Arts in South Korea. She was awarded the third and first prize in National Art Exhibition in 2000 and 2005 respectively, and was awarded a Gold Medal in 2008 from Arniko Yuwa Sewa Kosh.
She was honored with a Young Achiever’s Award, 2011 by Today’s Youth Asia and also awarded by Chinichi News Paper, Japan.She received the Tej Bahadur Chitrakar and Bhadra Kumari Ghale awards in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
Synthesising the more interesting depictions of cultural medieval arts, Erina Tamrakar’s paintings capture the shades of women’s emotions in traditional art forms. Her use of acrylic paint on canvas gives birth to something appealing and conventional. Her works help viewers discover the many layers of women.Her art work is popular and some are owned by Voith, Hotel Annapurna, Nepal Investment Bank. They are also among private collections in countries like Kenya, France, USA, Germany et cetera.
Artist Erina Tamrakar has had a joyful journey evolving as an artist. Her sense of creativity has been strictly feminine in all beautiful ways. Perhaps she was searching inside herself when she started off- her early works are but simple portrayals of women.
Erina Tamrakar’s paintings opens out the world of women, their feelings and emotions. Painted in hues of vibrant reds, blues, greens, the audience is compelled to connect with Tamrakar at two levels: sensual portraits that dazzle us and at the same time force us to think deeply about female empowerment and awareness.
“When I paint, I don’t paint with a concept before hand,” said Tamrakar . “It’s like the canvas and I have a conversation. I create as I paint.”
Disheartened by the growing number of cases reported for violence against women, the artist aims to inform her public about the importance of empowering women through her mesmerising paintings.
But what is significant about the artist is that though she has enjoyed painting in the constraints of the genre she has always explored whether it be mediums or moods. Excited about being a mother, she created a volume of works on motherhood. Erina has also been appreciated for her series namely “Third Eye”. Here her women have large eyes and also a third eye. The third eye sees beyond the ordinary. The third eye symbolizes a state of enlightenment or the evocation of mental images having deeply-personal, spiritual or psychological significance. The third eye is associated with visions, clairvoyance, precognition, and out-of-body experiences.
Erina’s paintings have been undergoing a metamorphosis over the years. A decade ago, her paintings bore the hallmark of Prashanta Shrestha’s legacy. During this period the rural life of the Newar community featured in her works. A murky palette of green and blue seemed to envelop her paintings and created an atmosphere of oppressive gloom. In the previous years, Erina’s imagery has been undergoing a subtle but definite change which is very much in keeping with the events in her personal life.
The metamorphosis of her imagery is linked to the events in her personal life. Her marriage to the artist Asha Dangol, banished forever were the dejected rural who suffered under the load of their daily chores. Rapturous women adorned her canvases, reveling in their sensuality in discreet isolation and the joy of motherhood was amply expressed as a recurring motif in her paintings.
A trip to Jamirkot, where the artist chanced upon a broken umbrella in the attic of an old Nepali house aroused a range of emotions. This explains why the series ‘Silhouettes in Time’ contains a number of paintings where the umbrella looms larger than life. Bright and vivid offset Erina’s umbrellas, which are the ultimate screen or canopy for all seasons and all emotions -they are in fact another manifestation of the leaves which shelter Erina’s men and women.
The woman that she paints may well be mirror reflections of her own self. A woman with a parasol: shy, pensive, earthy and sensual, more at ease with nature than in the urban incarceration of Kathmandu. A woman with an umbrella, shielding her hopes, joys and fears from the elements and prying eyes, as she rushes about conducting the mundane rituals of her daily life.
Erina Tamrakar is an imaginative visual artist—her works are equal parts beautiful and repulsive—with a distinct aesthetic and a personality to match. Big, bold, and Inspiring are three easy words to describe her work.
Erina Tamrakar’s work is a not just any piece of art, it’s not just beautiful and inspirational but there is a bold and confident aura in her work, as if every splash of paint is proud of where it belongs. Every painting speaks for itself and that’s the most enigmatically beautiful quality in her work.
