This painting gathers fragments of lived spaces drawn from Kathmandu’s architectural heritage carved windows, doors, and ornamental motifs shaped by artisans whose presence remains visible through their work. Structured within a grid of boxes, the composition functions as a series of containers, holding traces that might otherwise fade into the background of everyday life. These forms are not presented as relics, but as enduring marks of human making. Each motif carries the imprint of the hand that shaped it, reflecting a tradition where craftsmanship gave meaning, beauty, and identity to the city. Yet, surrounded by these details daily, we often pass them without notice. The painting responds to this quiet disappearance by isolating and reframing these elements in contemporary visual language, allowing them to be seen again with intention. By containing these architectural fragments within defined spaces, the work acknowledges the accumulation of cultural memory embedded in the urban landscape. Imprints of Forgotten Hands is both an act of preservation and recognition drawing attention to the makers behind the material fabric of the city, and inviting a moment of pause to witness what has long existed in plain sight.

Imprints of forgotten hands (बिर्सिएका हातका छापहरू)

This painting is fragments of lived spaces, the boxes act like containers, holding memories, and traces that would otherwise disappear gradually.This work emerges from close observation, material sensitivity, and cultural memory. Rooted in the architectural language of Kathmandu, it draws from traditional motifs found in temples, muth, and mandir especially the carved wooden doors and windows shaped by patience, devotion, and skilled hands. These forms once carried ritual, function, and identity; today they remain quietly embedded in everyday surroundings, often passed without notice. This painting does not attempt to preserve these motifs as static relics of the past. Instead, it brings them forward reframed, reassembled, and contemporized within the present moment. The rhythms of wood carving, the repetition of patterns, and the structural logic of traditional architecture are translated into paint, allowing the surface to act as a time capsule that holds fragments of craftsmanship at risk of fading beneath modernization and habitual seeing. This work asks for recognition rather than nostalgia. It invites the viewer to pause and re-encounter what has always existed, yet often remains unseen. By shifting these architectural details into a contemporary visual space, the painting quietly honors the artisans who shaped them and reflects on how cultural beauty can continue to exist, evolve, and be perceived today.

Mukta Rani Singh

About the Artist

Imprints of forgotten hands (बिर्सिएका हातका छापहरू)

Time living in wood (काठमा बाँचेको समय)

About Mukta Rani Singh