Jupiter Pradhan

Jupiter Pradhan's works hint that orientalism has made the eastern intellectuals mannequins. By doing so, the orientalists attempt to prove eastern tradition and knowledge invalid and defunct so that they can impose the hegemony of their so called modernism. According to the artist, actually the west has shared many things from the east. Thus the artist's implied proposition is eastern artists should go back to their root. In the line of his own philosophy, Jupiter's works share some aspects of Nepali tradition. By doing so, his artworks covertly question, resist and oppose the western hegemony. Nevertheless, the internal colonization is equally widespread, for so called elites are imposing their power over the underdogs. He gives renewed life to the religious icons, images and symbols.

The multimedia works also depict the struggle between the cultural colonizers and the naïve natives. The ghostly hands lurking from above are attacking the innocent characters. The strings are connected to the innocent characters, the potential mannequins and pulled back and forth by invisible force. The terrorized and agonized characters attempt to free themselves being guided by their own myth and culture. Lotus is a powerful image that symbolizes enlightenment, the assimilation of individual self and the universal spiritual being, in which all the contradictions of the external world are resolved. Traditional Hindu lamp is also recurrent image that symbolizes knowledge, wisdom and light. He does not take traditional established icons as they are but occasionally subverts them with different significances. In next view, his works seem to be political satire with melodramatic and farcical events.

Jupitar Pradhan connects two different cultures, lifestyles and natural surroundings, that is, his own culture in Kathmandu to the Mithila folk art in Terai. His contemporary art techniques come into dialogue to the traditional folk forms. He shares images of plants, leaves, flowers, insects, fish, crabs, Mithila women and even gods and goddesses along with decorative patterns. The human characters are depicted with elongated big eyes and face in profile. The artist reformulates with his own innovation. Despite the different organization, he keeps the constituent parts of the folk art intact without disruption and distortion as in pastiche. The paintings attempt to link the tradition with modernity.

He exploits the decorative lines of the Nepali traditional paintings and recycles the myths. He has also accommodated the motifs of rickshaw painting of Bangladesh in his works. Both Nepali and Bangladeshi features of art have been negotiated in his paintings. The heterogeneous genres and forms like photography, painting and the shiny sheets of rickshaw, the real object of the world (the popular element) are merged together in the single works of art.

In self portraits of Jupiter, the figure appears in the posture of pantomime. And sometimes, he seems to be a mythical character. The artist gets himself reflected in the glittering sheets of rickshaw painting. To be free from the complexity of contemporary society, he puts himself on the circle of lotus in meditating posture. His works have some autobiographical touch and performative dimension.

The artist respects the innocence of the children and makes exquisite toys for them in their own collaboration. His is a humble attempt to free the children from the shackle of modern civilization and the prison-house of the classroom through healing arts. The artist's obsession with the dolls depicts his nostalgia of his own blissful childhood. Paradoxically, he attempts to unlearn what he has learned considering the primitive situation as the real one. His creative process takes interdisciplinary approach in the sense that he brings together electronic media, music, sculpture, poetry, painting and performance.