A new exhibition titled Echoes of the Soul by artist UR Rimal opens with a striking sense of depth born from a prolonged period of artistic pause, reflection, and internal conflict. The exhibition began on October 12 is presented by Contemporary Art of Nepal Foundation, displayed at Dalai-la Boutique Hotel’s gallery, Thamel.
The body of work on display emerges from the artist’s meditation on what creation should mean in a world shaped by unrest, expectation, and the subtle pressures that mould human behaviour. In this solo painting exhibition, Rimal has experimented on his subject and colour palette.
He has used soothing pastel colours in the background and he has used soft, muted tones for his subjects in the paintings. Through these colours, he has let himself be free to experience emotions such as togetherness, love, joy, youthfulness, victory and more. Before, his subjects used to be objective and used to play around with darker gothic hues.
“This time I experimented on my subject and colours. Suprisingingly, I am also satisfied with how the paintings turned out. It was out of my own necessity to experiment that’s why I chose totally opposite colour palette and expressed my ideas in subjective form,” explains Rimal.
However, he has still hold on to his core where his paintings are engaged directly with sociopolitical realities and the exhibition examines how identity, agency, and emotion are continually shaped and often restricted by society.
Poetic and philosophical artworks
In the exhibition, the paintings that began as introspection has unfolded into a profound inquiry into human psychology and the tension between personal authenticity and societal control. The artist turns inward to confront the complexities of existence, and outward to question the systems that define, discipline, and sometimes distort the human experience.
Visually, the works are poetic and philosophical. Distortion, fragmentation, and surreal juxtapositions serve as tools to uncover deeper truths. Human figures appear fractured yet rooted, often depicted with references to their sites of origin. These forms become metaphors for duality representing aspects of the human body and psyche society has deemed obscene, but which, the artist suggests, are inherently sacred.
By intertwining the human figure with everyday objects and familiar landscapes, the artist exposes how constructed moral boundaries shape identity. These hybrid forms reflect how individuals are pulled between what they feel internally and what society expects externally, revealing a constant negotiation of selfhood.
Bleant of reality with imagination
Vibrant colours, layered compositions, and abstract structures build a dreamlike space where reality blends with imagination.
About the exhibition, Curator of the exhibition Bidhata KC shares, “Within this surreal environment, society operates almost as a character, looming, influencing, and watching. Each painting resonates like an internal vibration, inviting viewers to find beauty in discomfort, question inherited beliefs, and reflect on the delicate balance between creation and suppression, the sacred and the profane.”
Ultimately, Echoes of the Soul transforms introspection into a dynamic dialogue: between the self and the collective, the body and the spirit, silence and confession, the visible and the hidden.
It is an exhibition that not only reveals the artist’s probing search for meaning, but also invites audiences to look inward to confront their own echoes, silences, and unresolved stories.
The exhibition continues till November 30.
