Saturday, September 12, 2009

Shahabuddin: An artist’s own war

Ershad Kamol

•   Part 1
•   Part 2

Over three decades he has been living in Paris, the centre of the global art. But the artist is still featuring people and nature of Bangladesh in his paintings. The Bangladeshi expatriate artist Shahabuddin has become a name amongst the art lovers in Europe for his distinctive style: a kind of blending of oriental and occidental contemporary art form. Perhaps he is the only Asian artist who is ranked amongst the top artists in France. In the last Beijing Olympics his artwork was displayed amongst the top 50 contemporary artists of the world. Only six Asian artists including him got such a rare honour.

A proud Freedom Fighter, Shahabuddin is still featuring the legacy of the Liberation War of Bangladesh in his unique painting through motifs, colours and compositions. On the logic behind featuring such spirit in his paintings, Shahabuddin says that he does it because he thinks that the war has not ended yet and he is continuing the war through his art.

As an artist Shahabuddin showed his mastery at the initial stage of his career in the early 1970s. The young artist Shahabuddin threw a challenge to the contemporary art trend in Bangladesh. Considering it the modern art form, leading Bangladeshi artists used to practice only abstract art. He successfully set a new trend: a blend of figurative and abstract, which became very popular and the young artists of those days used to follow his style.

Under a scholarship programme, artist Shahabuddin went to complete his masters in art in Paris in 1974. The political turmoil in 1975 compelled him to stay in Paris. Now the artist frequently comes to his motherland just to meet his friends and relatives. And obviously he displays his contemporary works in Dhaka, whenever he comes.

In an interview with The Daily Star Online Artist Shahabuddin shares his days of struggle in his early life in Paris, his views, visions and feelings from the point of view of an expatriate.