Sushma Joshi's "Blue" Nepal at Gallery 9
I had a solo exhibition of my paintings at Gallery 9, an independent gallery started by artists in Lazimpat, Kathmandu, in 2004. This report was published in Kantipuronline.com, the online venture of the Kathmandu Post which has since been incorporated as part of the digital online presence of the newspaper and is no longer a separate entity. The reporter who filed this report was quite young, so I wanted to clarify some points: I was explaining to him that Claire Burkett, the founder of the Janakpuri Women's Art Project, had rented an apartment in our home when I was 18, so I was influenced by the piles of folk art which I saw in the house. Despite taking courses at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design in visual art, I wanted to draw in a more simple manner, so I deliberately tried to copy their folk style. The uneven crosses took me some time to draw, because I needed to un-train myself from drawing perfect lines. I was mimicking the Janakpuri women's bo...