In a partnership with the Boston-based advisory art.works, the iconic Somerville artist Sneha Shrestha (aka “Imagine”) has created her largest painting to date for the lobby of a new DivcoWest life-sciences building at 441 Morgan Ave., North Point. Colorful and vibrant, it’s well worth stopping by to take a look; though the lobby is open to the public, the work can even be seen from the window.
Towering at 137 by 137 inches, Shrestha’s painting gives a strong sense of heart to an otherwise corporate interior in the Cambridge Crossing development. Titled “Green Tara 2” it’s inspired by Shrestha’s “Celebration” series, which draws from her own decade-plus immigration journey. For this new work, Imagine stays true to the sweeping, calligraphic mark-making that she is so well known for. While continuing to draw from the Nepali alphabet and graffiti style cursive, this time she remixes letters from forms such as the 1040-A or I-120A into an unintelligible mix of signs and signifiers. Her remarkable visual language transforms this arbitrary, inscrutable and often dehumanizing bureaucratic process into something beautiful.
A neutral green base grounding the composition makes “Green Tara 2” more understated than the other pieces in the series – but makes the painting’s striking red pop even more. The color matches a dress her mother wore at a ceremony in her native Kathmandu that in a lengthy immigration journey full of red tape, Shrestha wasn’t able to attend. The painting is vibrant and full of life, though, ultimately a celebration of citizenship and to happy endings to arduous journeys.
While the rest of this building is under construction, public art lovers are in luck. The lobby is finished; the painting beckons.
“Green Tara 2” in the lobby of 441 Morgan Ave., North Point, Cambridge.
Share your own 150-word appreciation for a piece of visual art or art happening with photo to editor@cambridgeday.com with the subject line “Behold.”
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