Black, beautiful and bold

Albatross woodcut print

Asked why he had chosen woodcut for his form of printing, Obata Takashi said he had met a famous print maker in Japan, Shiko Manukata, and had been influenced by him. This was during his formative years as a student. He went into this genre of print making as he was greatly impressed and influenced by the master and he felt that he could make his mark in the fine art world if he stuck to print-making and abandoning work in all other forms of art. Delving on why he had kept his work as realistic was because, "I wanted to reach out to everybody and not just to a few art lovers, connoisseurs and critiques. Also, I can best express myself in realism rather than in abstraction, symbolism, allegory etc." as Takashi put it.

Speaking about the materials that he used during his work as a print-maker, Takashi said, "I use four types of tools to dig into the wood to create forms and shapes on Japanese hand-made papers. I utilize poster ink, called 'sumi iro' or black colour, which is not to be confused with Indian ink. Water is also used to dilute the simple dramatic black colour. I apply the paint onto the wood with a brush once the wood plate has been cut after the paper is adjusted. I rub a heavy plate on to the paper from the top after which the print is completed."

Touching on why he preferred to use only black on the white paper, Takashi said that he could best express his feelings and aspirations in the black and white images even though this is not easy. He said that he left it to the viewers to use their imagination and put in any colours along with the black and white images. He said that he did colour prints too although he had restricted himself to black and white in August exhibition at Zainul.

Delving on his subjects, Takashi said that he was born at Fokuoko city in Japan, where one can see hills and the sea. There are many birds and animals here and one is not cut off from nature. Thus one sees the different animals and birds there which he has included in his forms along with that of female forms, specially nude ones. Thus he has tried to capture the environment around him. Sometimes he has given his bird forms the qualities of human beings and at times he made them a part of the hills surrounding the living beings. He said that in one of his woodcuts he has included a lion, birds, fish, a goat, a pig, a buffalo and a bear along with an enormous seated owl which has larger proportions than the cliffs on which it is perched. Thus forest inhabitants have been carefully juxtaposed in one of his delineation of nature.

"Among the handful of Bangladeshi artists that he had the opportunity to meet in Japan, Takashi said that he found them mature, enterprising, powerful and of international standard. This included the works of GS Kabir and Nazia Andaleeb," Takashi said, commenting on the work of Bangladeshi artists, as seen at Japan.

Asked to compare the works of western artists that might have affected him subconsciously, if at all, Takashi said that he had been to USA, Canada, France, Italy and UK and there he had the opportunity to specially study the traditional religious forms of art. Thus we found Noel scenes blended with subtlety as regards the singing and the stars. He felt that the western themes will in future be more readily adapted by Asian artists with time just as eastern motifs and subjects have influenced artists from the west such as Matisse and Delacroix.

He added that as far as he could see, the use of modern images in print-making was fast making an vital impact on the east, along with that in the west. He said that even in the works of the younger generation in Japan, prints were taking decisive steps and were progressively greatly in demand.

In one of the prints one could see the seated figure of a woman in contemplation. There were birds at the back and front, some in white and others in specks of black and white. The images were outlined with black while the main nude figure was a rhapsody of black and white with streaks of white flecks going throughout the body. Another print had a female figure with her curling hair floating like some poet's dream about her. Birds of different shapes and sizes intermingled with the hair.

Obata Takashi, whose exhibition at Zainul Gallery had been partly sponsored by GS Kabir, has been an art teacher at Soka city, Japan from 1963 to 1998. At present he is a free lance artist with more than 20 exhibitions to his credit from 1963 to 2003.