Dynamic 5: A brave endeavour

Nokhshikantha by Urmi Basak

Rashed Kamal Russel featured scenes of fun and laughter on the beach at Goa, where a group of 25 students had gone for a holiday. Russel showed the young merrymakers playing and resting on the beach, while others were taking boat rides at the back. The figures were in black and multi-colour and ushered in the element of movement with an impact.

In contrast was Nimnobitto where he depicted the deprived rickshaw puller with his carefree young passengers. Nishorgo placed a canvas upon canvas to lend depth, with the use of horizontal and vertical straight lines to add a dimension to the landscape of the yellow sky and the flat river in front, all done with minimal strokes. In the painting Lal dupatta, a piece of silk cloth was used in the form of a collage. In another creation the artist had brought in metal and wooden parts, while delineating a young crowd enjoying themselves in a railway cabin.

"In my work I wanted to portray the suffering and insecurity of our people," says Abdus Sattar Toufiq. In Metamorphosis and Obscure Sorrow he has shown the poverty and despair prevailing among our people. Most of Toufiq's paintings were dark blue and green, with a ghost-like pale white light surrounding the figures. Depressing reality also had the want of the common people in focus. In Winter morning, a different type of painting had brought in nature in all its beauty, but here too the choice of colours had been dark and pensive. The trees and houses had green and blue paints scattered on them.

Md Arifuzzaman Arif's work too had the element of a melancholic vision in many of his paintings. For example, Rebirth of holy souls had the canvas covered with dead bodies and blood. Wind of change was more spirited and lively although here too there was an element of eerie light falling on the bare, black tree trunks, with a maze of orange leaves swirling around the barks of the trees. Black and blue hues dominated the paintings. Happy souls had a pensive man's head as he sat thinking, while behind him was a row of ghostly dancing figures in green and brown.

Zakius Islam Rassel does not believe in bright images or colours for his canvas and oils. Exhausted showed an old man, weary with his toil at the end of the day. The city of freedom brought a lane lined by blue and black walls, with a torn bloody army boot placed in the forefront. The portrait Freedom fighter also had a depiction of struggle and strife.

Urmi Basak Shukla's mixed-media work was different from most others in the group. Her Nakshikantha had stitched leaves in a swirl with a multi-coloured bird happily perched in the centre, wrapped in flamboyant rainbow colours.

All the five artists are students of the Institute of Fine Arts, DU.