Himalaya to Cascadia
Transcending Boundaries 1973 – 2023
Western Gallery Western Washington University
Throughout his long career, Jyoti has forged a unique direction in art that transcends boundaries. He experiments freely with all types of materials, media, and techniques. Jyoti’s practice of Sādhanā, a meditative path to creativity, reKects an openness to chance discoveries. His artworks — sometimes humorous, serene, and multi-sensory — also engage social and environmental issues.
Born into a family of Nepali poets and writers who championed progressive reform, Jyoti became immersed in a challenging political landscape. He also developed an empathy for nature amid the Himalayas in Darjeeling, India, where his family lived in political exile.
Jyoti received a scholarship to attend graduate school in California. While earning his PhD in government, he transformed a carriage house into an art studio. Jyoti began fusing Nepal’s aesthetic and spiritual traditions with modern and contemporary art. Exploring museums in Los Angeles, he developed an afXnity with Western artists — Kandinsky, Klee, Pollock, Noguchi, and Brancusi — who shared his approach and philosophy of art.
Jyoti has crossed many borders during a career deXned by places as diverse as Kathmandu, New York City, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In 2009, he moved to Bellingham and began a series of works that combine earth pigments from our region with recycled sanding belts marked by the trees of Cascadian forests.
This exhibition introduces you to Jyoti’s wide-ranging explorations, from Visions of Himalaya to the Molecular and Galactic.
Enjoy the journey!
Barbara Matilsky, Curator
