Shashikala Tiwari's stunning current show, entitled Shunya man ka sthabdha aankha haru (The bewildered eyes of a grieving mind), is a tribute to Their Late Majesties. The 13 paintings is an intense portal that sends the viewer hurtling back into time to relive the experience waking up to the news of 1 June, 2001.

Each painting is like the fleshing out of a nightmare, an exorcism of the pain the artist says she has forcibly channelled out from her self and onto the canvas. They have an immediacy that brings on gooseflesh. The paintings are accompanied by little explanatory sentences in Nepali, and even these are like miniature poems, giving the paintings even more power.

Tiwari isn't selling the paintings-she wants them to be on display for as long as possible. The message, she told us, is from the late King Birendra himself, who once told her that it is one's duty to love one's country, and to do what you do best in order to help it. That long-ago message is what kept her sane, says Tiwari, and inspired her to paint through her misery.

(Shunya man ka sthabdha aankha haru is on at the NAFA Art Gallery, Bal Mandir until 12 August.)