S.C. Suman’s Paintings as Inclusive Visual Narratives

Shiva Rijal

S.C. Suman has asked me to write a short text on his paintings. It comes amidst his hasty schedules as usual. He makes a trip to the USA to run workshops on Mithila paintings for some weeks. As soon as he lands in Kathmandu, he flies to his home town in Madhes province. Back to Kathmandu, he becomes busy arranging for the upcoming exhibition that you have come to watch finally. In the meantime, he has executed some fresh paintings. I go to meet him at his residence in Bafal area. It seems I have followed his paintings for over two decades now. But finding him among his paintings at his home reveals some new meanings to me. A proud family man, he is a humble human being. He spreads out his paintings of all sizes, old and new, on the floor. They overwhelm me. I notice the degree of engagement he has made and time spent on executing Mithila paintings. He offers me brochures which include texts written by famous art and culture critics of the nation. I am preoccupied with a desire to discover the shadow of political changes that Nepalis have gone through in the recent decades in his paintings.

 

Upon observing, I find that the motifs from the world of traditional Mithila paintings change their colors and contours, shape and size. As they are placed side by side the motifs taken from non-Mithila cultural contexts become eloquent. I notice motifs from the Rajasthani paintings, and also the motifs from Mandala and Thangka, as well as Newari and Tibetan artistic and cultural expressions. The capital Valley and other culturally and artistically vibrant places in Suman’s paintings appear as subjects bonded with shared cultural and spiritual values with Mithila world views.

As a sojourner, Suman chronicles cultural and artistic expressions and motifs found beyond his cultural space within the visual narratives of Mithila paintings. The urban chaos of Kathmandu, the cultural cosmos of Newari order, the Pashupatinath temple, the Rajasthan’s urban escape, they all acquire Mithila aura in the hand of this painter. I regard it as the power of the artist. The Mithila cosmos manifested in his paintings and drawings do not function as supplementary materials. They become the narrative frames. They provide space for motifs from neighboring cultural and artistic sphere to come and be part of the cosmos of Mithila cultural order. This visual narrative methodology becomes a very persuasive to the onlookers as they find non-Mithila motifs merging in Ram and Sita’s marriage episode, and Krishna and Radha’s romance and similar other myths and legends. The views and philosophies on life the traditional Mithila paintings narrate through culturally and naturally appealing motifs such as fish, peacock, tree and so on are laden with universal meanings. Such deeply rooted Mithila motifs become solid poetic foundations, which absolve the non-Mithila motifs without distorting their original meanings. The White House and metropolitan city of the West acquire color and contour from the cosmos of Mithila paintings. They are imbued with Janakapur’s architectural and natural aura. The White House within the visual narrative frame of Mithila painting in Suman’s hand reminds the viewers of the famous Ram Janaki temple. By providing such space for images of new land, the Mithila paintings in his hand acquire greater articulating power. This also defines the journey the painter himself has been making over the decades. Someone known for providing Mithila paining of traditional order a new recognition as well as establishing it as one of the strongest forms of artistic expression, his success as a Mithila painter of international stature should be praised for the reason that he acquires such power of evoking global social and artistic forces while remaining a local in the visual frame.

My further contemplation on the paintings that Suman spreads out in front of me reveals that he carries the world of Mithila paintings like a seeker would do with mantra in his or her mind. The seeker would chant the mantras every day. But the same mantra sprouts out with new meanings time and again. Suman, the seeker feels a new energy running through his entire body. He picks up his brush, colors and canvas for another round of adventure into the world of Mithila cosmos. The wide range of themes he has played with do confirm that his plunging into the cosmos of Mithila culture is research-oriented not a mere eccentric exercise. The scale of creative journey that he has made is possible only through serious studies and sadhana or passion. His paintings are not made-up, but are created out of his churning of myths and legends shared among people in the subcontinent. His paintings are proofs that he has fathomed deep into myths and legends, philosophies and metaphysics of Indic scholastic tradition. This is the reason why his paintings exude a common cultural message across the nation and beyond. Importantly, his journey enables him to provide the motifs from Mithila painting a mobility as well. With such journey, he holds creative power to move them from positions and color warranted by established tradition. They hesitate to remain static in his hand. Viewers encounter a flow of creativity passing through the canvas. Such is the power he has nurtured for decades now.

As I look into a painting hanging on the wall in the east of Suman’s sitting room, I get drawn by the mobility of fish in the canvas. It takes me sometime to understand that Suman the painter too is like the fish that he has drawn in the canvas. This fish as a motif belongs to the Mithila cosmos but is on adventure to explore the world beyond. Its upper part comes out of the Mithila cosmos, with eyes conscious of the world around, it is re/turning home. Registering the world outside in his senses, the fish seems bringing certain energy or message home. The fishes in his canvas face each other, swim in opposite directions and form symmetry of various orders. They look happy and exude an aura of freedom. The fish in his hand is more than a fertility symbol. This gives an impression that the images and icons of Mithila paintings of traditional order such as trees and women folks, birds and fish, flowers and water acquire freedom in the hands of Suman. While imbuing them with freedom, he provides them vitality and mobility. In his hand, these motifs exude a form of what we may call robustness. Occupied in their actions, they look plumbed into their roots.

I move now to historicize Suman’s paintings to contemporary Nepali political contexts. The history of Mithila painters and intellectuals bringing transformation in social and art sphere of the Valley is already eight century old. But in this course of time, the Newar cultural cosmos has absorbed the elements from the Mithila world and made them its own. Similarly, the intellectuals struggling for securing identity of Maithili language and people have produced very constructive discourses instrumental for creating more egalitarian Nepali society. The Valley in their narratives becomes the metaphor of a centralized state, the emblem of coercive regime. But Suman’s visual narratives provide a frame for the Valley to articulate its cultural values. The cultural order of the Valley merges with the mythopoetic world that Mithila paintings celebrate at their core. In his Mithila paintings, Suman provides the unifying space to Nepali culture and art, a goal that the regimes in the past should have done through establishing institutions and promoting languages and arts of all regions. I think with Suman’s paintings, one feels Madhesi intellectuals rising with a sense of responsibility that they have a job of accomplishing a vision that the regimes in the past had ignored. For me, he represents the tradition of intellectuals and artists, who have spoken from their local, cultural positions and also taken the responsibility of nurturing a vision for the entire nation. Every time Suman dips into the Mithila cosmos, he comes up with a Mithila painting that pulsates with new meaning acceptable to the Nepalis of all backgrounds. At times when intellectuals and artists from various cultural communities across the nation have been articulating radical ideas to create pressure on the mainstream, watching Suman’s paintings becomes soothing and inspiring experience for them. With Suman, the Mithila painting becomes both a regional form of expression as well as visual narrative that the entire nation and beyond easily gets articulated. Suman offers Mithila attire to Nepal and Nepalis. At times when intellectuals in Nepal are busy creating discourse to create a more robust nation, Suman’s paintings are already a nation as they become cradles to cultural voices of diverse nature. Mithila narrative frame in his paintings thus function as an inclusive as well as guardian forces.

At the end, I would say Suman is a modern Mithila painter and while becoming so he also becomes a nationally reputed and a responsible painter recognized by the nation. In my view, he is a pioneer painter in some significant ways. On the evidence of his paintings we can say, Suman as a creative artist has made significant contributions for enhancing the image of the artistic heritage of his nation and people.

I would like to invite you to move to the inclusive space of Suman’s paintings and realize that they hold special significance for the people whose artistic heritage he has foregrounded and for the country that has nurtured and promoted diverse artistic traditions and heritage.

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Shiva Rijal
(Rijal, a PhD on cross cultural theatre, teaches at the Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University)