Artist and Renaissance Man

Chirag Bangdel is as happy holding his guitar as he is holding his paint brush. He enjoys writing when he can and loves talking on his radio shows that he hosted for more than two decades. He has free lanced as a film maker.

“I live for the joy in creativity. And you just live once. I would get bored if I just did one thing!”, he shares.

        But lovers of art know him most for his figurative paintings that he has created in a large number for a period of two and half decades. With over twenty five solo exhibitions in the country alone, the artist has shown his works in one man shows and group shows in many parts of the world. His works are well sought after and is one of the most collected artists in the country today.

       “Nature was my first muse!” Chirag says. “ All artists and poets are first inspired by nature”

The artist was brought up in Mirik, a beautiful little town in Darjeeling.

“ There was coniferous vegetation all over and everything was beautiful. We would wake up in the morning with the sound of birds. I wrote a lot of poetry then. I think I wrote more than I painted.” He remembers.

    His late father Roshan Bangdel was an educator and a writer.

 “Papa wrote beautifully.” Chirag reminisces. “He wrote such beautiful poems and short stories and these were published regularly in magazines and papers. I was so influenced by him.”

     Chirag would get to spend time with his granduncle, celebrated artist Lain Singh Bangdel, only during his school vacation, when he got to come Kathmandu.

“His paintings fascinated me!” Chirag recalls. “The house walls would have these huge abstract paintings and I was mesmerized all the time.”

It was only after he completed his school finals that he got to come to Kathmandu for his further studies and help his parents with the boarding school that they had started.

Now he also got to spend more time with his grand uncle and he, along with his brother Anurag Bangdel, also an artist today, started taking regular painting classes.

Apart from the art lessons he received from his grand uncle, Chirag is basically a self taught artist.

Chirag has been an avid reader and also loves writing when he can. Parallel with his painting , he free lanced for different magazines and journals. He also wrote columns for different magazines.

He loves poetry and has published four collections of poetry. Perhaps this is the reason why his paintings are so lyrical. Talking about his works, famous poet Manjul once said, “When Chirag paints, he writes poetry and when he writes poetry, he paints!”

Along with most creative people, the Maoists insurgency strongly affected the artist and he created a series of installation art during the time which he called “Experience Red”. These series have been well received in the international art scenario.

But for a while now Chirag has  just wanted to paint on love.

“It’s the strongest and the most beautiful feeling !” the artist’s eyes shine as he talks about his series. “ It is also only love that will save humanity at the end of the day. There is so much violence and hatred all around us that when I want to seek a little peace of mind, I read a poem, listen to a song or look at a painting. If we inculcated violence or any negativity in our art works, I am afraid, we will have nothing left.”

Chirag is admired for his ongoing series of paintings which he calls “Geet Govinda”.

“The paintings in this series are but a celebration of love. I seek my inspiration from Lord Krishna, Radha and Gopi. But my Krishna doesn’t have a peacock plume, which means He could be you or me. I borrow the title from the 12 century lyrical work “Gita Govinda” by poet Jayadeva but my paintings are created from my imagination." the artist shares.

The other ongoing series, he is celebrated for is called “Season of Hope”, paintings that were created after the earthquake.

Chirag has experimented a lot with motifs and mediums and he enjoys minimalism. He juxtaposes his styles – sometimes rich in texture and sometimes in plain stark and bright flat colours. And in both ways his paintings are a joy to see.

“I believe paintings have to catalyze the visual senses” the artist explains, “only then they can be enjoyed by other senses. Art is all about feelings. Everything else comes later for me.”

“Being an artist is an intellectual thing to do.” Chirag says. “Art should have  intellectual content in it. But having said that I believe the intellectual content should be inculcated in a subtle way. I am not a big fan of art works that are forcibly overburdened with intellect.”

“Being an artist is a way of life, a lifestyle. It’s even beyond creating. I have chosen to live the life of an artist, so I choose different mediums to satisfy me.”

His collection of short stories and haiku “ Mist Around The Stupa” was published by Chautara Publications in the Netherlands in 2009 and enjoyed a second reprint. At the moment he is finalizing his second collection of short stories.

Chirag has experimented extensively with mixed media and collage and has had big success with his series which he calls “Tattva”. Apart from Nepal, he has shown this series in many parts of the world , including a complete sell out exhibition in Almere, the Netherlands.

His love for poetry inspired him to organize two editions of “South Asian Poetry For Peace”, one of the biggest poetry festivals in the region. Over a hundred poets from all over South Asia and thousands of poetry lovers enjoyed poetry in wide open spaces.

Chirag loves playing and collecting guitars. In 2021, he founded “Blues Undercover”, a blues band where he  sings and plays the guitar. Among other venues, the band performed in the celebrated annual “Blues and Roots” festival in Kathmandu last year and is gearing up for a new series of gigs this year.

With so much of creativity in him, all we can do is wonder, what Chirag, the Renaissance man, is up to next !