Krishna Prakash Shah

Born in 1972 A.D., Krishna Prakash Shah, a well-known contemporary Nepali artist and Ph. D. Scholar of Fine Arts in Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal. Shah, an art studio member of NAFA (1997-2015) and a visiting lecturer at Kunst Akademie Kalkar, Germany (2016/17), was awarded “National Fine Art Award - 2021”, by Nepal Academy of Fine Arts, “ Amatya Art Award – 2021” as the best artist of the year 2021 in the genre of modern and contemporary paintings by CAAN and Bai-Ni Writing Award 2022. Besides this, the winner of nine national-level art competitions, Shah has exhibited his works in three solo art exhibitions in Nepal and three solos in Europe. He participated in the 14th Asian Art Biennale-2010, Bangladesh, Austuling Nepal 2015, Germany, including more than a hundred other national and international group art exhibitions and residential art workshops.

Shah is one of the most devoted figures in the field of contemporary arts in Nepal, for he dives into the depth of the creative process until he captures the sparkling gems of visual work irrespective of time, effort, and resources. Shah attempts to explore the invisible and intangible dimensions of reality in his abstract visual arts and states that the quest for knowledge begins with abstraction. He reaches the extreme by rejecting the mainstream, mediocre, and middle path. Breaking the boundary of conventional codes, he experiments and invents his own rules for his creations. Furthermore, he has a distinct worldview, vision, and philosophy of art and life as well; the visible is beautiful, but the invisible is sublime. All scientific, social, cultural, and artistic innovations have been guided by the imagination of the unknown and the abstract. We imagine things that do not exist at present, and we try to materialize that dreams. Abstract thought is the trailblazer of all inventions, creativity, new knowledge, experimentation, and all human achievements throughout history. These are the key elements of human happiness and hope. Shah’s abstract paintings capture these aspects in the visual form providing insights into life along with aesthetic pleasure. In this sense, Shah has carved a distinct space in the domain of world art and philosophy. His interest and quest for abstract imagination are sources for the production of new knowledge, which can be different thoughts and ideas for others that help to change the world.