The Color of Freedom

Kiran Manandhar is a Nepali artist known for his bold use of color, but during the pro democracy Peoples' Movement all he could see was black and red.

KATMANDU, Nepal - As Nepal's most celebrated and successful painter, Kiran Manandhar says his muse always bore a woman's curves, not the passions of politics.

It was tangible beauty that inspired him, not the exegesis of democracy's gospel.

Yet when the Nepalese people rose up against the rule of their autocratic king in April, Manandhar couldn't stay in his studio.

Kiran Manandhar: an artist transformed» View

"My life is not important if I can't give anything back to my country," he says.

Manandhar joined the other protesters on the streets to call for democratic reform in Nepal. When he returned home, he was not the same man.

This thoroughly modern artist, known for scarring his canvas with bold lines, rubbing it with dirt and smearing in swaths of colors with his hands or even his shirt, was stymied.

"After participating in the demonstrations I came back to my studio. What should I do? My eye is blind to color. I can only see black and red," he says, referring to some of the major colors of the demonstrations.

So he did what many great artists do in unfamiliar territory: he followed his instincts. With great strokes of black he began sketching out figures as he always had, but this time he felt the images, symbolic of the Peoples' Movement, couldn't be contained on just a canvas. So instead he painted them on the outside walls of his house.

The art of democracy » View

"It was as if I didn't have a choice," he says.

After that episode, Manandhar moved back to the canvas, but says he still couldn't work with full color. The pieces he now produces are dominated by the blacks and reds of this democratic revolution.

He shows me a work he's just completed, featuring the shape of an egg, which, he says, represents Nepal. It's surrounded by ominous birds, barbed wire, a rifle and bloody handprints.

It's a far cry from the pieces on which he built his reputation, works that derive their beauty from a sense of connection rather than alienation, from communion with others rather than conflict.

"My inspiration has always been my fascination with society, figures, the romantic, birds, trees, animals," says Manandhar. "I focus on the female form, not the male. That for me is where the real beauty is."

But now Manandhar says he is in a different phase - one which will likely follow the trajectory of Nepal's democratic process. He says these are not just the empty words of a dilettante but something he is backing up with action.

From the studio to the street» View

Indeed, at an event held next to Gongabu Street in Katmandu, site of some the largest pro-democracy demonstrations in April, Manandhar and 55 other artists and poets are creating works of art that will be sold to raise money for those injured during violent confrontations with the police.

Some of them collaborate on pieces in which poets' words are written on the canvas and then illustrated by the artist.

A poet named Manjul translates his poem, which reads:

When the streets start to speak with blood, even the cruelest dictator will not be able to close the mouth of the country.

Manandhar himself is busy in front of a crowd of people, creating one of several paintings he will contribute to the cause.

He picks up a handful of soil and sprinkles it over the canvas lying on the ground, slathers the dirt with layers of white acrylic applied with a palette knife, and finally brushes on thick strokes of red.

"Painting is like dancing," Manandhar says. "I put it on the floor, I use my palm, my clothes, clay, dirt - anything. I want to be a man about it."

Other artists take their works into the nearby marketplace and paint while sitting on shop stoops or in doorways.

Manandhar says the artists have already raised nearly $50,000 from a similar event shortly after the uprisings ended.

He says though artists often spend their time isolated in their studios, this shows they can also be a part of the revolution - a revolution, he believes, that won't always be in black and red, but eventually in living color.

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