Neither
Devi, nor Women
Mustafa
Zaman
In
between the mythic and the real, resides the world of Khaled Mahmud.
His art teems with female figures that went through a kind mutation
that had rendered them almost animal-like pseudo-humans. Each artwork
contains a women. The cannily titled show, Maya, brings into view
a relay of female forms that are as a rule juxtaposed against a
colour-laden and texture-rich backdrop.
Often
these figures crouch, kneel, ride a beast or stand or half sits
while their hands and legs seem to flail in wired gesticulation.
But the artist seem to have the full reign over them, he manipulates
the female form in deliberate manner. His women are mannered, their
shape and gestures are repeated, though in the method of a clever
mannerist.
Khaled,
in his work, seems to loose his footing where he seems too methodical.
When he is given to his intuition, he strikes gold.
The
articulate postures of the women are not the sole element in his
work.
Bon
Devi/ Etching Aquatint
The
textural configuration often gains the upper hand and veils his
anthropomorphic forms, which are his women. It adds beauty to his
art. But, it also undermines the strength of his figuration.
His
lean, scraggy and almost blasphemous figures are given salience
in few works. In these works the artist seem to have laid claim
to his women as an entity, whose presence is enough to strike a
mystic cord in the mind of the beholder. Colour harmony and textural
pattern, which tie him up with the surface painters of the old school,
too often wins over. It is in these occasions that the art of Khaled
seem to hark back to the past. If this chord of connection is severed,
and the bold lines that we see in his version of tong-revealing,
many handed Durga or the beast-riding naked female fakir, are given
a chance to stand out from their backdrop, only then the possibility
of his art widens. In the work of the beast-riding woman, he accomplishes
this with flying colours.
Khaled
has proposed two sets of artworks, one is his etching series and
the other is his paintings on smallish square plastic with a squire
hole in the middle. In his paintings he is more prone to formal
arrangement, in printmaking he relies on the form. In his etching,
multiple lines are used to build the female form. It is in this
linear process, through which this young artist have proved to have
created a fresh, new domain of images.
Khaled's
first solo titled Maya was inaugurated on August 2 and lasted till
August 12.