Hamiduzzaman's go at water-colours

"I am a sculptor by profession but ever since my student days I've always been fond of water-colour. It can be done quickly. All you need is a paper, a board, some ink and a few colours," says Hamiduzzaman. "Water that you need for it can be obtained anywhere. The results are immediate. You can catch the changes in nature and give a wash to your sketches within minutes. I'd been lost in sculpture for decades but now for the last ten years I've been working on water-colour too.

"It is a part of my daily routine, anyway, as I go about sketches for my sculpture. In this display I've done faces to which I'm greatly drawn. I enjoy showing the differences between each face. Even when I travel in an airplane, I make sketches in my sketchbook. Some of the faces trace back to Korea, and some to the Chittagong Hill Tracts. I try to elongate the faces to render them a spiritual angle. The ears and noses are sometimes lines in my search for simplicity. I don't always stick to realism."

Hamid says that he loves water-colour, and in his portrait, with the basic dark tints he has added colours like blue, burnt sienna and yellow ochre. When he does the portrait, he has the 3D effect of a sculpture in his mind. He makes each painting like the presentation of a black stone. The paintings are dark, simple and moving. The colours are basic with touches of brighter pigments here and there in the highlights. "Even when I work on sculpture, I make sketches with the use of water-colours, using dark opaque lines. This medium is part of his life and work. Here the faces are not real but illusions," he says.

First he puts in the form and then he proceeds on to the colours. He waits as he blends the layers of tints. As one painting dries, he works on a second piece. He works in between his walks on his travelling sketches, adding colours from his memory when he comes home.

When he did his BFA in Painting and then his Masters in Sculpture, he was inspired by Mustafa Manwar, his immediate teacher, who did many sketches. Zainul Abedin too was fond of him. When Hamid was a young student, Abedin chose some of his work to be presented to the visiting Burmese President Ne Win in 1964. When Hamid went to study in India, Zainul Abedin told him, "Keep in touch with your water-colour. It will take you far." Earlier Hamid did not take water-colour so seriously but now he's changed his views. "Famous sculptors like Rodin and Ramkingkor have used water-colour to sketch their primary works and so I find this medium very useful myself," Hamid comments.

The exhibition is open till October 1.