Exhibition
Scintillating rickshaw art
Fayza Haq
The superb exhibition on rickshaw painting, that opened at the Alliance Francaise recently, drew large crowds of viewers. The display combined the work of 10 rickshaw painters and 11 contemporary artists, who had participated in a workshop that had been arranged by Britto Arts Trust at the Alliance Francaise, Dhaka. What was amazing about the feat was that within a very short time excellent work had been organised and presented. Of course, the attempt had culled some of the cream of talent from the Fine Arts DU products and the rickshaw painters that The Daily Star had earlier displayed on this page. The experiment was undoubtedly a fresh presentation of what can be achieved if work can be done coolly and collectively. Moinuddin Khaled, a noted critic, explained the wonder of the achievement. He went into various details of the magnificent display. Khaled said, "Here the 20 artists have combined two different genres: the popular language of artists who paint of the body of rickshaws and the one from the Fine Arts Dept, DU. Both types of art present perspectives, combine compositions, and present wondrous works." The rickshaw paintings are flamboyant, whereas the works of the Fine Arts painters tend to be more muted. "They use icons," he said "like film actresses, or the Taj Mahal, combining it with various types of flora and fauna, presented in loud colours. These colours naturally attract the people when the rickshaw comes onto the road. The academic painters, on the other hand, present a 'language' as their teachers have used before them. It is normally realistic and representational. "They do not combine the subject with various other ones in the manner that the rickshaw painters do. The proportions of the subjects are naturally more sophisticated and presented in a more subtle way. They will never present hunting scenes in the manner that the rickshaw artists do. They never use the 'pseudo perspective' which enables the rickshaw painters to let the viewer see so much in so little space. What dominates the display is the 'language' of the rickshaw artists. Thus Boticelli's Venus arising from the ocean has a new dimension in the exhibit. "Thus the unique language of the rickshaw painters in Bangladesh, which differs from that of those found elsewhere in the subcontinent and the Far East -- which has a connection with miniature painting -- has been amalgamated with the talent of established Dhaka artists, such as Shishir Bhattacharya, Nisar Hussain and Tayeba Begum Lipi. The paintings have been done together, the 20 artists applying the brushstrokes in unison on to the space before them. They had decided between themselves as who would do what before the workshop on rickshaw artists began." Alinoor, Tapan Das, DC Das and the other rickshaw painters spoke at length about the problems they faced while working on this project and their individual lives in general. Of the 11 contemporary artists -- which included Tarun Ghose, Nisar Hosssain, Atia Islam Anne, Shishir Bhattacharya, Sulekha Chowdury, Tayaba Begum Lipi and Mahbubur Rahman -- Lipi and Mahbub of the Britto Arts Trust-- expressed their sense of satisfaction with their current project.
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Visitors at the exhibition. PHOTO: STAR |
