Varun Naag by Asha Dangol

Asha Dangol’s current figurative explorations engage the viewer in a provocative dialogue about urbanization, consumerism, and ecological concerns.  These contemporary issues are framed within a polarity and dichotomy of visual symbols: east and west; traditional and contemporary; past and present; the mythic with the real.  The imagery is seductive in its cultural appropriations, and the meanings become even more acute when the audience reads the cultural signifiers and its substitutions. The Tantric Buddhist deity Vajrabhairava is recontextualized in an environment of urban decay. The artist person, recast as Hevajra subverts, conjoins the spiritual with a sense of consumerism and loss. His recent series, including pieces like Where am I? and Paradise Lost, provide a personal cultural commentary about globalization through richly coded visual narratives.