In a stepping arrangement of cascading triangles, squares and domes, somewhere the hint of a grinning monster peeks at you from a pool of rich colors. Sagar Manandhar’s 37 canvases on display at the Siddhartha Art Gallery, Babermahal titled, ‘Utsav’ oozes with fervor.

The paintings which are marked with the artist’s paint brush, frequent drips and patterns of colors, exude an enticing brightness. The color blue, which makes its appearance in almost all the paintings, sets a pervasive quality in them while the controlled waves of little black lines punctuate the broadness of the canvas by encrypting details into the monochrome of the plain surface. They create a structured yet unfinished re-rendering of figurative temple and festive structures in the Kathmandu valley which float silently in the frame. The rounds of a chariot wheel, a parasol or a little, white dot in an earthy ground of a light green meadow, mark a ritual in procession.