Worshippers gazing reverently at the face of a deity in a temple rarely wonder whose hands gave it shape. Unknown master artists of Kathmandu Valley passed on their skills within the family: a father, an uncle, a grandmother's brother, someone who learned the work at a family bench and inherited with it the duty of keeping it alive.
That chain of hands is the subject of the Siddhartha Art Gallery 39th anniversary exhibition brings together 36 traditional artists and artisans working in wood, stone, metal and paint.
Curated by museologist and artist Pradip Shakya, Sacred Splendor begins with a question rather than an answer: ‘What could be more profound than a life without suffering?’
He describes the Valley as a crucible where trade routes, pilgrimage paths and intellectual movements met, and where one of the world's most sophisticated artistic traditions took shape.
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Deities throng the gallery space. The fierce protector Bhairav stands near the benevolent Ganesh. The serene Prajnaparamita, Avalokiteshvara and Vasundhara keep them company — they come from two faiths, yet they speak in one visual language of mudra and postures.
Shakya explains that tthe gestures of hand and body allows the viewer to understand the cause of suffering and the path to enlightenment. It is a language that has allowed Hinduism and Buddhism to flourish together in the Valley for over a thousand years.
The curator wanted to bring both traditions under one roof to show the tolerance of Nepali society. Sangita Shrestha of Dwarika's Hotel inaugurated the exhibition with Gautam Rana, founder of Baber Mahal Revisited.
"Our art is not in museums. It lives in the hands of the potter of Thimi, whose wheel has turned for a thousand years. It lives in the chisel of Patan, where stone still becomes god. It lives in the thangka and the mandala, where every line carries meaning. It lives in the lost-wax metal casting that travelled from Nepal to Tibet and beyond, and in the wood carving that gave Newar architecture its soul,” said Shrestha, whose own hotel is a haven for rescued artefacts.
"If we lose a building, we can rebuild it, but losing the artisans who know how to carve and continue the tradition would mean losing a thousand years of memory,” Shrestha added.
The life force of art, spirituality and tradition come together in this exhibition with the works by Pradip Shakya, Rabindra Shakya, Sundar Sinkhwal, Rajani Sinkhwal, Chandra Shyam Dangol, Palsangmo Lama, Jigme Tamang, Siddhi Ratna Shakya, Ujaya Bajracharya, Indra Prasad Silpakar and Ram Bhakta Maharjan, and the late Kalu Kumale.
Shakya notes that many of the works carry family skill and ancestral knowledge passed down through generations. A bronze figure cast today is made with the same respect for ancient texts as it was hundreds of years ago.
A gilded bronze, a paubha, a carved wooden beam: each comes from the same union of spiritual and artistic devotion. Here, a statue is not an object but a presence, one that is invoked, adorned and venerated. Shrestha's hope rests on the younger artisans in the show, who she said are carrying these skills to new heights.
Sangita Thapa of Siddhartha said the show brings a living tradition into view and presents the historic splendour of Nepali art in a single space. Devendra Thumkeli, former member secretary of the Nepal Academy of Fine Arts, said the exhibition shows how deeply art has shaped religious, cultural and social life in Nepal. Artist Prakash Mijar called it a landmark exhibition that joins spirituality, history and art, and urged that such original traditions be protected and encouraged.
The faces with serene half-closed eyes, wide eyed wrathful gazes, the hand gestures took someone a lifetime to learn. After 39 years of building a home for art, the Gallery has chosen to mark the occasion by honouring the hands that create the divinity in wood, metal. stone and in paintings. In the Shakya's own words, this is "a rare opportunity to witness the soul of a civilisation that continues to create beauty as a pathway to the divine”.
Sangeeta Thapa and the artist Shashikala Tiwari founded Siddhartha Art Gallery at Pratap Bhawan, Kantipath in 1987 to create a contemporary art space and meeting point for artists from Nepal and abroad.
Ten years later, the gallery moved to Baber Mahal Revisited, a complex where Gautam Rana had envisioned a gallery space, and the courtyard has been its home ever since.
More than 600 exhibitions later, the gallery has hosted artists from around the world and mounted retrospectives of all the big names in Nepal’s contemporary and traditional art. The Gallery also organised exhibitions of Nepali art in the UK, India, Pakistan,vBangladesh and at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark.
The first Kathmandu International Art Festival in 2009 led to the founding of the Siddhartha Arts Foundation in 2011, and then the 2012 festival and the Kathmandu Triennale in 2017 and 2022. It co-commissioned the Nepal Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with Ang Tsherin Sherpa and took Nepali artists to the Kochi Biennale.
Sacred Splendor
Siddhartha Art Gallery
Baber Mahal Revisited
Till Thursday, 5 November 2026