Famous and controversial personalities under the lens

Titled “Loss of the Toss is a blessing in disguise”, Firoz Mahmud's exhibition ended recently at the Dhaka Art Centre, Dhanmondi. The 10-day exhibition was inaugurated by Paris-based Bangladeshi artist Shahabuddin Ahmed. Noted cartoonist Shishir Bhattacharjee was present as special guest. The exhibition featured around a 100 manipulated photographs, five sculptures and paintings.
Firoz displayed some selective manipulated images, which he had earlier exhibited at different venues in the Japan, Indonesia, England, Germany and the USA.
The exhibition had images of popular celebrities, dogged by controversies in their personal, social or political lives. The painter experimented with images of historical personalities from various fields including singer Michael Jackson, Italian former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, Julian Assange (Australian editor- publisher better known as the discredited editor-in-chief and founder of WikiLeaks), footballers Diego Maradona, Zinedine Zidan, Pakistani cricketer Shoib Akhter, Bangladeshi cricketer Mohammad Ashraful, Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin and actor Ananta Jalil, Bollywood actors Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt, boxer Mike Tyson, top Japanese Sumo wrestler Asashoryu Akinori.
Firoz takes photographs of celebrities or collect as found objects from magazines, billboards and advertisements. He focuses on thrilling, humorous, athletic and happy moments of the controversial celebrities. He draws lines where they are about to fall or feel hard to gesture in the photographs. Their idolised appearances are highlighted by line drawings.