Kathmandu, April 24 -- Bhaktapur is all about ritual, resistance, and remembrance. Now a new generation of artists is exploring the city of devotees through art.

Balkrishna Banmala was a child deity dancer who performed sacred tantric rituals. But what many saw as divine honour for Banmala was a time stolen from his childhood.

"On the surface, it looked beautiful to be honoured with offerings and prayers," Banmala tells us. "But behind the masks and the barefoot dances, we were children denied a normal life. No school, no shoes, no time to play."

Banmala is now an artist and his canvases are part of the Chitra Katha exhibition at Siddhartha Art Gallery. The paintings blur the line between the sacred and the everyday: a masked deity rid...