Farewell to Civilisation
![Summer at 1:00pm, acrylic on canvas, 2014.](https://tds-images.thedailystar.net/upload/gallery/image/arts/acrylic1.jpg)
Why did it take Syed Hassan Mahmud 18 years to come up with an exhibition, one wonders? Hassan says that making 69 paintings was not easy, as it all took his mind and soul. He was very disturbed after his father's death and there were many legal factors to be seen to, regarding the possession of his house in Road 6, Dhanmondi, where “Jhanpi” art is situated.
Whether acrylic, oil or chalk pastel, they have all been experimented with. He feels that when he teaches he should know everything about the media in question. In the process, he has learnt a lot. The journey of life is a learning process, he feels.
It so happened that in Bengal Gallery Camp in 2010 the sparks on a tree caught his eye. Hassan felt that if he studied the tree closely he would be able to transfer the tree into abstract shape, form and colour.
Syed Hassan has worked with architects who are his students. They come to him for help, and tell him what their teachers want. For years he has been working with Rafique Azam. He is working as a consultant at Rafique Azam's “Shattato” for 14 years. As he was interested in architecture, he worked on pure form.
The Camp of Bengal Gallery turned him to throw his colours. He no longer touches his canvas with his brush. Hassan keeps his canvas on the floor and not the easel. He sits on the floor in the Asian style, as the “gurus” did before. He uses dots and makes, at times cube forms, as did Picasso, Braque and Piet Mondrian. Shifting from this, he throws his colours in the style of Jackson Pollock. Like Pollock, he is weary of the noise of the city and is tired of its concrete walls. Hassan longs for the greenery of his old home in Old Dhaka. In his work we see the foggy winters of Europe and the warmth of our summers, with its red colours of joy.
![](https://tds-images.thedailystar.net/upload/gallery/image/arts/acrylic2.jpg)
Having narrowed his vision, it is difficult to express his thoughts, views and hopes, which one does in one's paintings, he says. Hassan wishes to continue in the same way for ages to come. He also has some tools that he has made from his old, unused brush and wire so that when the paint is thrown, it falls in the canvas in a manner different from applying paints. He gets a different type of pleasure from this, Hassan says.
He says that it is different and more interesting than merely applying paints in order to sell his paintings at the galleries. At present he is using acrylic. He has used pastel for ages and then water colour, he says. He uses the acrylic in water base. Watercolour is something artists have used for ages before. Acrylic is easier to use than water colour or oil, says Hassan.
He wants to represent his inner feelings and Nature, specially the six different seasons, even if he portrays Europe's winter and its fog.
Artists wish to paint the present political issues. He is weary of representing negative elements of life. He says that he has had enough of that around him and he longs for peace and harmony, with Nature in the backdrop.
The exhibition will end on November 15, 2014.
![](https://tds-images.thedailystar.net/upload/gallery/image/arts/acrylic3.jpg)
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