Voice of Colour

The day I felt a stronger connection with the rice and its ability to give lives, I began to work with the rice in my painting. No one can tell if every rice in the paddy can be edible after it is uncovered, and some of the rice will definitely not be edible.

I do not have any topics for these paintings. I was exploring the new medium to create art, so I came up with rice that is familiar to everybody. I toasted rice till it changes its color. Toasting time duration varies colors as it is burned. I pick three stages of color: White, Brown, and Black, toward drowning in coal. Later I glue every single piece of rice in the canvas/cardboard with the help of a fine tip curved tweezer.

The day I felt a stronger connection with the rice and its ability to give lives, I began to work with the rice in my painting. No one can tell if every rice in the paddy can be edible after it is uncovered, and some of the rice will definitely not be edible. Weevils will eat some during the process.

Similarly, many people will be shaped by other sources, outer philosophies, and mentoring, losing their actual color and shape. There is no difference between becoming the spoil paddy and becoming one with losing self-identity. Some of the coal-burning rice represents all those people who sound like others, walk on a directed road, and sing others' notations for their own life.

Besides that, I see rice in many other metaphors. Rice plays a vital role while I grow in the Bhutanese refugee camp located eastern part of Nepal. I have been evidence of starvation while I was in a refugee camp. However, we were fortunate enough to have some ration provided By the World Food Program (WFP) compared to many refugees in other parts of the world.

Every time I take a bowl of rice for my meal, I ask myself what the value of this rice is to those fighting hunger in many refugee camps around the world? So, these paintings are a representation of the hunger that I have seen in a refugee camp. It is the representation of the hunger that many people are surviving currently.