Govinda Sah 'Azad' | Meditations

Our Garden Gallery will feature a selection of large paintings by London-based Nepalese artist Govinda Sah 'Azad'. Transcending traditional cloudscapes, Sah’s paintings capture the essence of the emptying mind. 

Like clouds on a remote planet envisioned in myriad temperaments through the lens of an orbiting satellite, the oil and acrylic his canvases are rich with opalescent tones and, at times, a gritty surface finish. Evocative of landscapes, his abstractions never settle into definitive objects of time and place but appear as thresholds to realms of mystery and possibility.

Beginning his artistic career in the Himalayan mountains close to where he was born, Sah first moved to London to study at Wimbledon College of Arts, before moving from London to Margate, a sea-side town where J. M. W. Turner paintined many of his luminous landscapes. Sah’s intensely detailed work is filled with an inner light, one that he first admired in the expressive radiance he found in J. M. W. Turner’s oil paintings. Although seemingly unconnected, the landlocked peaks of the high Himalaya and the tumultuous seascapes of Margate are connected in Sah’s imagination by the atmospheric clouds that envelop them, which upon parting reveal dynamic vistas illuminated by shafts of light below.

Discussing his enigmatically alluring paintings, the philosopher Anthony Blake has written, ‘(Sah’s) very tangible, textured, exquisite and astonishing canvases are windows into primordial worlds and the mystery of how nothing becomes something.’

Govinda Sah’s work has appeared in numerous solo and group art exhibitions internationally, including the Tibet House, New York, and at the October Gallery, London. His works can be found in public and private collections worldwide including major collections such as the Royal Collection, Abu Dhabi, UAE.