A name can be a potent thing. It can link you to your ancestors and might even shape your future. In Nepal, the surname Chitrakar is laden with significance, for it marks its bearer as a creator of sacred art.

Derived from Sanskrit, the name means “image maker” and designated a caste in Nepal’s Newar community that customarily worked as painters, sculptors, and general artisans, creating religious works in both the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. They say an icon only comes to life after once a Chitrakar paints its eyes.

Kichaa Man Chitrakar is one of many Chitrakars in the country, and he and his family live up to the name’s legacy. His home studio is in Kathmandu’s Nagarjun Municipality, overlooking dusty vistas of candy-colored houses. The staircases and walls of the family home are lined with paubhas, religious paintings similar to Tibetan thangkas, painted by the Chitrakar family.

Traditionally Nepal has only a handful of ‘master artists’ dedicated to paubha painting at any one time, and Kichaa’s family includes two: his great uncle, Manik Man Chitrakar, and his father, Prem Man Chitrakar. Manik Man is known as one who helped shape the modern Newar art renaissance. Prem Man in particular is credited with making Newari art available beyond his family and his caste. “Master artists traditionally taught only within their family and caste. While tradition and upholding the Chitrakar legacy was important to Prem Man, his big heart and desire to share knowledge saw him take him many students outside of his family. This makes him one of Nepal’s most important teachers,” says Rajan Sakya, founder of the Museum of Nepali Arts (MONA).

Paubha paintings date back to the 11th century, and the first recorded paubha by a Chitrakar is from 1409 by Kesa Raja Chitrakar. More than works of art or historical relics, paubhas are objects of religious devotion believed to be messages from the gods. Their sacred nature means they must follow certain rules, with deities depicted in proper ratios and dimensions; and in their color, hand gestures, and facial attributes. What made Prem Man revolutionary was his fusion of divine tradition with new techniques. “He freed Nepali artists to infuse life into tradition, by using realistic expressions and landscapes in his work. All established paubha artists in Nepal, including former students Samundra Man Singh Shrestha and Raj Prakash Tuladhar, have been influenced by his style,” Sakya explains.

Growing up, Kichaa watched his father work almost every day. “Time passed watching my father paint. I learned everything I know from him,” he recalls. His technique is similar to his father’s, with detailed and lifelike deities and an asymmetric yet balanced composition. Creating a paubha is an exacting process that requires attention to the tiniest detail. To look closely at one of these paintings is to see a world of meaning in every brushstroke.

When Kichaa speaks, he chooses every word deliberately, just as meticulous as each stroke of his brush.“My name means ‘shadow’ and was given to me by my father. He wished for me to live up to the expectations attached to the family tradition,” says Kichaa. A dream of studying animation abroad was thwarted when his father took him to Lumbini, a sacred pilgrimage site said to be Buddha’s birthplace, to work with him in a monastery. “He promised me a good amount of money, which he never entirely paid,” laughs Kichaa. But living and working with senior artists, he developed his own technique.

Kichaa is currently finishing up a painting titled Mahakala, which depicts the energy of the male deity Heruka. Heruka’s multiple hands signify power, while his tantric entanglement with the female god Sambhara indicates a harvesting of energy. The union of the two gives rise to Mahakala, a ferocious deity. The gods and goddesses wear garlands of severed heads—often misunderstood as sinners’ heads, notes Kichaa—that signify fearlessness in fighting against the ego and fear of death to attain the soul’s liberation. In reality, he says, one has to achieve enlightenment and live a moral life in one’s own way.

In confluence with Kichaa’s artistic journey was a personal reckoning that brought him closer to art. In Nepali society which is bound by close social bonds, Kichaa underwent a time of unwanted media attention, leading to the breakdown of personal relationships at a time when Prem Man’s health also started deteriorating. Reconciling this emotional and social turmoil led to healing, which was a “necessary process to get back to art. The greatest obstacle to creation is one’s own state of mind,” says Kichaa.

Paubhas teach philosophy through art, and their method is a form of meditation. This type of devotion has assisted Kichaa on his journey as a person and artist. As he’s made peace with the past, he hopes to dedicate his life to creating and conserving Chitrakar art for future generations. His next project is producing a documentary series exploring the origins and history of Chitrakar and paubha art. The first stop will be the ruins of Nalanda, an Indian monastery founded in the fifth century, where many Buddhist scholars who later settled in Kathmandu are believed to have studied. 

Kichaa reflects: “These life lessons have been a harsh learning process but made me more patient and forgiving. Those [traits] are some of the most important virtues of being a paubha artist. When you break into many pieces, you are given the chance to reshape yourself—now, the creation and preservation of art is how I can touch lives in a positive manner. I like that.”

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Contributor: Yvonne Lau
Chinese Translation: Pete Zhang
Images Courtesy of Kichaa Man Chitrakar, Prem Man Chitrakar, and Rajan Sakya