Façades and flowers from Nepal to Italy

The Barun trees surrounding Patan’s Agnishala temple are bowed with age — curving over stout brick walls of the temple, its gnarled branches threading through power lines. Rain drips from its glossy green leaves onto the temple courtyard.

The trees are said to have existed for as long as the sacred eternal fire has burned in the temple. 

Botanical illustrator Neera Joshi Pradhan was on a heritage walk through Patan when she saw yellow flowers blanketing the ground, and recalled visiting the temple for puja with her family as a young girl.

“I realised that while we look with much awe at Nepal’s temples and architecture, we tend to neglect our natural heritage," Joshi says. “Once that realisation set in, I started sketching them.”

In 2021, Joshi had also been invited to the Florence Biennale, and she extended her stay to spend time with family there. Surrounded by the architecture of the city, she was hit by a strong urge to pick up her sketchbook to commit Italy’s historic buildings and vibrant plant life to paper.

The results of this interplay of our natural and cultural heritage are currently on exhibit at The Kalā Salon’s From Nepal to Italy: Drawings of Flora & Vernacular Architecture. 

Joshi’s collection of more than 40 Pen/Ink and Watercolour Drawings are a departure from her signature precise, detailed botanical illustrations. They explore the history, heritage, and indigenous plant life of Kathmandu Valley, but as well as Rome, Florence, and Brixen. 

“Neera’s latest collection is a bit different from the botanical illustrations that she is known for, and is a really beautiful project that shows her capabilities as an artist,” says Sophia L Pandé, curator at The Kalā Salon. “Even in her depiction of architecture and heritage, the flora are a constant presence.”

Joshi’s artwork include pieces she did during her downtime more than a decade ago, before the thought of painting Nepal’s architecture and flora together had really crossed her mind. 

One such painting from 2013 includes a view of Swayambhu poking out from its surrounding forest, with blue-green hills in the background and the grey-brown concrete of Kathmandu Valley in the foreground, painted from her perch on Kirtipu.

Her more recent works from 2023 include pen/ink watercolours of monkeys playing beneath the shade of a Mayal Tree in Swayambhu, the Barun trees at Agnimath, and Panyu trees with their soft pink blossoms swaying in the breeze.

In Italy, Joshi walked along cities sketchbook in hand, admiring the view and stopping at public benches and gardens whenever inspiration struck. Her drawings are serene explorations of everyday life in Italy — people walking through cobblestone alleys or sitting in contemplation in public parks, combined with sweeping landscapes of the country’s architecture. 

In one painting from Italy, titled Balcony, Brixen, the veranda painted in faded brown with its pen and ink detailing of the intricate railings, is reminiscent of Kathmandu Valley’s Newari architecture. 

“Seeing the balcony took me right back home,” says Joshi.

And even when buildings and architecture take up much of the portraits, the plant life is striking. Joshi has captured Supari trees towering over Patan Museum, ivy trailing up the soft yellow façade of a house in Brixen, pink flowers blooming in window boxes along a canal in Venice. 

Joshi’s attention to detail allows viewers to identify some native plants like the Barun tree flowers in Patan and sweet chestnut native to Italy. 

Joshi is perhaps the only botanical illustrator in Nepal, and  her detailed, vibrant drawings  balance scientific accuracy with artistic expression to document and preserve Nepal's native plants. Her exhibition is also accompanied by a colouring book with botanical art. 

“As we increasingly face natural disasters and the effects of the climate crisis, it is even more crucial to recognise our indigenous flora and save them,” says Joshi. 

She wants the public to be able to access some of this knowledge so that young people are at least able to identify plant life around them.

“This is what I am able to do from my side, but there needs to be institutional and policy-level attention to native plant knowledge and conservation,” Joshi says.

Adds Pandé: “We are very happy to have released her book as an accompaniment to the exhibition. I hope this is the beginning of something much larger to document and conserve our native plant life.”  

From Nepal to Italy: Drawings of Flora & Vernacular Architecture

By Neera Joshi Pradhan

Curated by Sophia L. Pandé

Until 6 July

11AM - 8PM

The Kalā Salon, Chhaya Center, Thamel