<i>Wonders in watercolour</i>

Sorrorow and Happiness-4 (right) and Happiness-1 by Wazman Nahar Runty

It is obvious that Wazman Nahar Runty has been a fastidious pupil of the late Shawkat-uz-Zaman, Nasreen Begum and Hashim Khan. The soft and gentle Oriental Art watercolour washes that frame her beautiful, voluptuous female figures and the gorgeous delineation of nature -- specially the cacti and their scintillating flowers -- speak of inspiration and dedication.
The young artist in the first year of her Masters is also motivated by the French Impressionists, i.e. Cezanne, Gauguin and Matisse in particular. Her father brought her foreign art materials when she was a child and gave hints for improvement of her artwork. Her family, today, hold their breath while she goes for her trips to the Hill Tracts for inspiration for her soft, pastel paintings.
On November 17, her three-day solo exhibition began at Zainul Gallery-1 and ushered in innumerable viewers. Runty's display “Sorrow and Happiness” has been a definite success. It presented her flamboyant portraits, flowers, and landscapes framing human figures. Villages, land patterns, birds, bees, details of indigenous lifestyle flow out of her palette and are carefully and subtly mounted on paper.
Why did Runty only use watercolour and not go in for oils and acrylic or mixed media like so many of her contemporaries? “I wanted a single medium in my collection of 56 paintings, and didn't want to dabble ad lib,” she says. “There are many variations in an individual's life,” she adds, and painful moments are couched with times of carefree moments, she comments.
Hashim Khan comments, “Runty's various creations make the current art scene more interesting.” Critique Rabiul Hussain too is all praises for her exhibition. Watercolour is a difficult medium to handle and the young artist has shown promise of going on many more routes, as she tries out her skill in various subjects. She had included some fine pen-and-ink sketches too in the exhibition.
The statuesque female figure with the lotus bud eyes and full lips is draped in a simple sari in “Happiness”. However, her arms and neck are bejewelled and her tresses fall like cascading water-fall. She appears to be resting in a forest with billing and cooing birds to her left. The play of light and shade and her eye for details are definitely promising.
In the same manner, the cacti with their opalescent flowers, buds, and thorns, which appear like some mesh of diamonds in the sky in “Sorrow and Happiness”, is something to write home about.
Another picturesque depiction of “Sorrow and Happiness” is an Impressionistic landscape. In it the autumn sky frames the bronze and faded jade green leaves that complete a mature stroke of brush that brings in a tree form in black and umber.
Wazmun Nahr Runty has won two awards: Best Media Award at the Zainul Abedin Annual Art Exhibition in 2004 and the Memorable Award in Ziaur Rahman Art Exhibition in 2003.
One came away surfeit with pleasure after a brief stroll of the exhibit gallery.