Finding Beauty in Print

Rokeya Sultana, a well known printmaker and a professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, Dhaka invited me to attend a Printmaking workshop, “In search of Beautiful Impressions”. The 7-day workshop started on June 18th and was organized by the art college and sponsored by Bengal Foundation. Two well known Printmakers, Nirmalendu Das and Pinaki Barua from Vishwa Bharati, Shantiniketan conducted the workshop. There was even a demonstration by Monirul Islam on the first day. Leading printmakers, students and artists from other streams attended. It’s been a hectic and fun week of interacting and learning. Being back at an Art College has been a treat. Selected prints of the participants will be displayed at a special exhibition to be held at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts from 2nd to 4th of June.

This Lithograph of mine “Being an Aunt” will be a part of the display.

And if you want to know a bit more about 4 printmaking techniques – etching, woodcut, lithography and screen print, check out the excellent step-by-step animated demo provided by MoMA.

Update : June 1, 2008 : Exhibition details.

You are cordially invited to the inaugural ceremony of a three-day print exhibition In Search of Beautiful Impressions on Monday, 2 June 2008, at Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts. This is a special show of prints produced in a workshop conducted by Prof. Nirmalendu Das and Prof. Pinaki Barua of Viswa Bharati University, Santiniketan. The printmaking workshop, organized jointly by the Institute of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka and Bengal Foundation, was held from 18 to 24 May at the Institute of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka.

Prof. Dr. S M A Faiz, Vice Chancellor, University of Dhaka, will be present as Chief Guest to inaugurate the exhibition while artist Mahmudul Haque will be present as Special Guest.

* Institute of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka
* Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts

Time and Venue: Monday, June 2, 2008 at 5.30 PM

Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts
Bengal Shilpalaya
House 275/F, Road 27 (old)
Dhanmondi R/A, Dhaka 1209
Tel.: 8123115, 9113115, Fax: 9146111

The exhibition will remain open till 4 June 2008, daily from 12 – 8 p.m.

Related Posts : 8 days a week, Masters of Print, Art College walk-about, On the 7th day

Lucien Freud – Take 2

As part of my efforts to improve I have been copying the works of some master artists. Lucien Freud is one of them. I’m drawn to this self portrait of his. You can see an attempt that I made recently and one made in 2005 side by side. And though they’re nothing compared to the original , inspite of seeing the mistakes, I liked them both when they were made. I guess my mind figures out what I’m capable of at a given point in time and gives me credit accordingly. I’d love to try this piece again after a year.

I’m in a book!

Well, it didn’t come as a surprise Friend and Photographer, Anil Advani, asked if I’d be a part of a book that he was producing for SoFoBoMo and I readily agreed. It was especially exciting as the book was to be about six artists and their art. The photo below is one amongst many taken at a photo session. The book turned out to be fantastic. You can browse through it here.

An artist and his muse

Jamal Ahmed is a successful Bangladeshi artist with 41 solo exhibitions to date. Pagla has been featuring in his work for many years now. With many artists you see a recurring subject, model or colour something they keep coming back to. Do you have one?

The reference for both these pieces have been taken by Anil Advani for his SoFoBoMo project and used with  permission.

Below I’ve tried a close crop of the digital painting made of Pagla. I’m not sure if it is better or worse.

Jamal 12″ X 18″ charcoal in my sketchbook.
Pagla digitally made using Art Rage 2.

Fair & Lovely?

We Indians, it seems, place a high value on fairness. Scan through a few matrimonial classified ads and you’ll see that a requirement that appears frequently, for a girl, is fairness. I’d thought that with our generation we would see this disappear but a recent dinner conversation reminded me that we still have a long way to go This goes out to all Indian ladies who continue to suffer the teasing and taunting of friends and family because they are dark complexioned.

In case you’re interested, links to a few articles/comments saying it so much better than I ever could. A Darker Side of Fair, Fair = Lovely, Bollywood delusions,

20″ X 24″ acrylic on canvas

Chip off the old block

I used a reference of my niece for this but the people I saw while painting were my two sisters!   Even now I see my sister and not her child.   Did I exaggerate the features I was familiar with till the likeness changed to resemble another person from another time?

Uma WIP 10″ X 10″ acrylic on canvas.  Photo taken by Suporno.