Of surrealistic forms and poetic compositions

A 13-day duet print exhibition titled “Diversity in Duality” is now on at Gallery Shilpangan in Dhanmondi where art connoisseurs can see some outstanding works by Ajit Seal -- an eminent printmaker of Visva-Bharati University, Shantiniketan, India, and his colleague Uttam Kumar Basak.

Professor Rafiqun Nabi inaugurated the exhibition as chief guest on March 12. Professor Nisar Hossain, Dean, Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka; architect and art connoisseur Mustapha Khalid Palash and Rupali Chowdhury, Managing Director, Berger Paints Bangladesh Limited spoke at the inaugural ceremony.

Ajit Seal's long engagement with the media has taught him that articulating a composition can never be independent of the medium's possibilities, uniqueness and particularity, which heavily influence the final outcome. As a student of revered printmaker Somnath Hore, Ajit himself has attained mastery over the printmaking medium.

His prints have a velvet-soft appearance that is evocative of the delicacy of watercolours or pastels. He manages to do large-sized prints in multicolour with an illusory ease of diverse forms – geometric, surrealistic and abstract. His imaginative world consists of serene human figures, frail birds and shy tortoises that coexist peacefully, shrouded in an ethereal light and shade.

At the exhibition, Ajit portrays a lean figure with staring ribs in a ground of stunning textures in tones of red and brown. Its sculpture-esque irony is reminiscent of Somnath Hore's bronzes. Stunning etching, platography and lithography are the highlight of the show. As a faculty member at the Department of Printmaking in Kala Bhavana of Visva-Bharati University, Ajit introduced platography, a medium previously unexplored by artists and students working at Santiniketan. In the platography process, the lithographic stone is replaced by an aluminium plate.

The nuance of surrealism is apparent in some of Ajit Seal's works. It is evident in a bent female figure floating down to the bottom of the composition through a landscape along with some abstract forms in a misty space, while a tortoise floats down to her. In this dreamscape where the known becomes unknown, the slumbering figure floats helplessly without any active agency.

The animal, human body, face and twisted female figure appeared as recurrent motifs in the works of both. One of Uttam Basak's etchings depicts a portrait of a man with an intriguing expression. Another of his etchings, “Cry for Peace”, shows an antagonistic feature between a tiger and a female figure.

There are some abstract and semi-abstract works at the exhibition, that is open daily from 3pm to 8pm till March 24.