A panorama of beautiful Bangladesh in oil, pastel and acrylic
VognoDuut 439
Saturday October 09 2004 11:34:01 AM BDT
NAUSHAD ALI HUSEIN
A Bangladesh, as close to nature as it could be, is depicted in oil, pastel and
acrylic through the brushes of eleven contemporary Bengali painters. Roop
Labonyae Bangladesh at Gallery Chitrak exhibits their work that began on
October 3, 2004.(The New Age )
The paintings, mostly landscapes, show an array of amazing scenery, endless
open fields and beautiful clouds on vast open skies. And then, there were
paintings of people represented in different activities.
Shamsuddoha had several entries most of which were landscapes. What was
striking in his work was the ever-present sky. Sundarban 1, a work in pastel,
had an ordinary blue sky and grey clouds, but they had a brilliant
golden-vanilla hue like one given by a setting sun.
The unusual colour had a stunning effect on the otherwise ordinary image of a
typical green flatland. In another work, the sky shown is one that is about to
burst into heavy rain. In this painting, a section of the sky is a light blue
with a slight purple tinge, giving it a fantastic effect.
Shishir Bhattacharjee expresses his obvious love for the tea gardens of the
Northeast. The tall rain trees add grace to the otherwise featureless, rolling
dunes. In his paintings, there are bushes in the foreground which is often
foreign to the tea-growing lands behind them. He does not leave out the people
of the land. Particularly in one of his landscapes, the prototypical worker
with the red gamchha, green lungi, and the quintessential white genji comes
alive!
Speaking of people, Nasreen Begum's Seated Woman,' will surely tingle one's
imagination. The painting done in watercolour shows a wealthy woman in a sari
sitting in a provocative posture, her dark sub-continental skin complementing
the bindiyaa on her forehead. Nasreen Begum has often compromised reality for
aesthetic value. For example, in Portrait, 'grammatically,' the woman's right
ear-ring should not be visible from her position. The part of the silver
ornament shown, however, renders a pleasing effect.
Roop Labonye Bangladesh would be otherwise incomplete without an image or two
of the rain. There are several, mostly by Jamal Ahmed. Boats and water are his
forte. The river-side 1 is a brilliant example. It shows the boats bunched
together at the edge of a river, the ferry passengers huddled under their
umbrellas ready to go across. Another painting shows a group of fishermen
marching to their boats in the early dark hours of dawn.
Alakesh Ghosh displays some of the classiest images in the exhibition. The
paintings are more colourful and subtle in their message. They portray a sense
of intimacy with the subjects. The beauty of his work is in the transparency of
the water-colours he uses, particularly in his River Escape series… beautiful
images of a busy river life.
"We have an exhibition like this once every year," says Mohammad Muniruzzaman,
a participant and executive director of Gallery Chitrak. One of his own works
is Winter Morning showing a bare tree full of different birds of Bangladesh,
including the crane, the bulbul, and the woodpecker. The picture adds colour
and variety to the exhibition.
Roop Labonye Bangladesh, featuring sixty-six paintings by eleven contemporary
artists, ends on October 12.
The New Age
Torpedo
Boy found dead in goods train
Staff Correspondent
An unidentified boy was found dead in a goods train at Kamalapur Railway
Station in the city on Thursday.
Railway security guard Mohammad Amirul Islam found the body in the Surma
Mail at around 12:45pm. The train arrived at the station from Sylhet at
10:05am.
The boy, aged about eight, was strangled, forensic experts at the Dhaka
Medical College Hospital said.
"VognoDuut 439" <vognod...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20041009041640...@mb-m06.aol.com...
> the water-colours he uses, particularly in his River Escape series.