Ceramics with austere colours and shapes

A representation of a couple crafted from stoneware

One of the jars on display has a bloated shape. A flower vase is gray and flecked with brown. A white container looks like an open, bell-shaped bloom and has gray flecks all over it. One is shaped like a torso and is actually a flower vase and this is brown and gray. There is a large headless figure, which is labelled Looking back. A representation of a couple is also there, and this is made of stoneware. The texture is that of coral and the artist has been inspired by the corals at St Martin's beach. There are more vases, some gray, burnt sienna, and others brown with flecks or raised service. There is soup-set and its rim is lined with bluish gray. The inside has a burnt umber colour. There is a bowl in the form of a seashell while others are containers for food in blue, cream and brown.

Asked why he had taken up ceramics, Halimul Islam says, "I've done my Master's in Fine Arts in ceramics hoping to experiment and do something new in form. In Japan I've worked for a year. There the atmosphere for a ceramics worker is very congenial as there are literally thousands of artists in ceramics to encourage you. There the raw material for this medium is found aplenty. Here only industrial ceramics flourishes. My bowls and cups are forms of art and not necessarily items of daily use. The subjects of my ceramics are taken from life around me as in the case of the sea beach of St Martin's."

Elaborating on his paintings, Halimul Islam says, "There is a similarity between them and my ceramics ware. I bring in the wet and affected walls of boundary walls where the cement is no longer even. I also bring in the slime growth on these walls. Sometimes the uneven mud paths in the villages with collected water is brought in. At times one can see images of humans and animals on the walls with the collected dirt and water."

Halimul Islam does his ceramics work at the Institute of Fine Arts DU. The work that he did in Japan -- comprising 400 pieces -- has been left behind, and he expects to go back and work on them. Here, in Dhaka, he has exhibited 50 items.

Talking about the problems he faces, he says his method is time consuming so that the prices are not as low as the buyers would like them to be. The prices range from Tk 700 to Tk 30,000. He does everything by hand and does not use the potter's wheel. Right now he is limiting his conception of work as objects of art rather than things of everyday utility. Asked why he uses dull, muted colours, Halimul Islam says that if he uses colours, he tends to imitate others, whereas wanted to do something that is totally his own.

The artist who has influenced him most is GS Kabir, who helped him have an exhibition in Japan. His teachers who have guided him include Shamsul Islam Nizami and Syed Abu Syed Talukdar. So far he has had four awards, including one from Tokyo.