Jonathan Armour and Kapil Mani Dixit.
This exhibition shows the work resulting from the collaboration between Jonathan Armour and Kapil Mani Dixit. Stemming from a commitment to push their creative practices beyond what either could/would have achieved on their own, the resulting series of works were challenging to make and perhaps are perplexing to behold.
So what does the title mean?
Central to the thinking here is the use of the material drafting film. This is not widely known as an art material even though Jasper Johns used it as a support medium for a series of works which Jonathan saw at the Courtauld Institute in London in 2014. More widely used in the engineering and architectural industries, it is a semi-transparent material almost like tracing paper, but with much greater tear resistant and does not buckle or wrinkle when subjected to liquids. Through years of working on it for drawing, moving through inks to oil pastels and then to oil paints Jonathan has explored the versatile and unusual qualities of this support medium.
In the combined hands of Jonathan and Kapil, this material became a membrane, an interface, a skin between two artists, each from a very different cultural/ethnic/religious/personal origin. The drafting film became the surface on which the collaboration played out. It was the meeting point, the “skinterface”, the synapses where their neurons connected, communicated and responded to each other.
Metaphorically this was where the cultural exchange, much talked about amongst those involved with establishing trans-national art connections, occurred. And in doing so the resulting mark making witnessed and recorded those exchanges, which were simultaneously collaborative, competitive, cooperative and conflicting.
Anatomy and neurology?
Some of the works were created in response to a third body, who kindly provided the artists with a visual reference, perhaps in the more traditional way of drawing from life. Some of the works were created in response to one of the artist’s bodies.
Even then, they were often working on either side of the skinterface, and so neither was able to describe the line or mark entirely as they wished.
Other works were created entirely from the nervous system. This is a way of describing that nervous excitement and anxiety, fuelled by instinct and intuition, which occurs when you are responding to what you are seeing, listening to what the drawing is telling you as it becomes, but spiced up by the alarming realisation that you are not in control of any of that process. You are flying by the seat of your pants!
All of this will become clear if you watch some of the videos captured by Sunil Poudel.
Human Intensive Enquiry Unit workshop.
Jonathan and Kapil organised the first Human IEU workshop in Kathmandu. This provided an opportunity for 6 artists to draw from life using a variety of poses and a group drawing activity called “The Landscape of the Body”.
The artists who showed real commitment and perhaps courage in joining this workshop were: Amisha Kc, Ayush Thapa, Denish Bantawa, Mukta Rani Singh, Suchin Shrestha, Sundar Lama.
Who is Jonathan’s collaborator?
Kapil Mani Dixit is a Nepali contemporary figurative artist known for his long-standing commitment to figurative and nude art in a cultural context where such subjects have often been considered taboo. For over two decades, he has worked with quiet persistence to shift perceptions and open dialogue around the human form in Nepal’s art scene.
He studied Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Arlington, graduating in 2004, and despite building a successful career in the United States, he chose to return to Nepal in 2008 with a clear purpose—to introduce and develop figurative art in his own country. His early exhibitions, including his first in 2009, were met with limited understanding, but he continued his practice with conviction, gradually earning wider acceptance and appreciation.
As the founder of #Apt08 Art Studio, Nepal’s only space dedicated solely to figurative art, he has created opportunities for learning, discussion, and growth through figure drawing sessions and workshops.
Over the years, he has received more than 40 national and international awards, and his work has been featured in over 100 newspapers, magazines, and media platforms. Once working in isolation and facing resistance from both society and those close to him, Kapil remained committed to his belief that figurative art would find its place in Nepal, and today, as more artists begin to explore this path openly, he considers this cultural shift to be his most meaningful achievement.
Where did the work go from here?
Later in 2026, four of the pieces from Jonathan and Kapil’s collaboration were exhibited at Thames-side Studios, London, UK, for the Turps Off Site Programme end of year show. Find images of this new configuration below:
