Laxman Shrestha is known for painting abstract landscapes that contain vast expanses. His first solo show in Kathmandu in 40 years shows the master at his best. The seven digital monochrome prints of paintings currently on show in Mumbai titled Elaborations, together with paintings from personal collections in Nepal, speak of restlessness, honesty, wildness, and the courage to destroy everything-qualities, Shrestha says are essential to be an artist.

Shrestha has come a long way from that first letter he wrote as a young man to the dean of the JJ School of Art in Mumbai, expressing his desire to study art, and then running away from Kathmandu with just Rs 500 to his name. The Siraha-born painter today exhibits around the world and his work goes for millions. He's prolific, too, and says he paints 30 big canvases, and 40 watercolours in a good year.

"Financial success has given me a lot of freedom, but I am constantly evolving, and searching for more depth," says Shrestha. When he started painting seriously 45 years ago, the 68-year-old Shrestha focused on figurative paintings that had "a level of distortion", because he didn't just want to paint what was visible to the regular eye. "I like to create new beings with the normal things I see," he explains. Particularly influential was a trip to Paris in 1964, when he saw the immensity of art history, and changed gears to a more abstract impressionist style. But Shrestha doesn't care too much for labels, and says that at the end of the day, he is just a painter.

Despite the years of painting and all the acclaim, for Shrestha, every new painting is a fresh start. "I feel as if I don't know how to paint," he laughs. He lays out the basic structure of a new painting in one trance-like hour on a huge canvas spread out on the floor. "Then I stretch it across the easel, and the thinking, feeling, and planning begin," Shrestha explains. "It's like putting flesh on a skeleton or dressing a body."

Shrestha, recognised the world over as a Nepali artist, calls Mumbai home. He visits Nepal every year to be inspired and to unwind. His contribution to the contemporary art scene here: "right next to my name in every international art house where my work hangs is the word Nepal."

Laxman Shrestha in Kathmandu, paintings and prints on show at Siddhartha Art Gallery, 15-22, 4218048.

Shitu Rajbhandari