Indigenous peoples' struggle and landscapes on canvas

Chakma woman by Rejaul Karim

Titled Shilpir Chokhe Khagrachhori, the exhibition features the works of 12 painters. The 10-day camp-based painting exhibition, from July 12-21, is the fifth arrangement of its kind by the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.

The Academy took artists Ansar Ali, Rezaul Karim, Syed Lutful Kabir, KMA Quayum, Alokesh Ghosh, Ivy Zaman, M Mustafizur Rahman, M Abdus Satter, Israfil Ratan, Mofidul Alam Khan, Sarker Ziauddin Ahmed and Debraj Misra to the art camp at hilly district Khagrachhori. And each one of them have presented five paintings based on their individual experience at the exhibition.

The watercolour paintings portray spectacular views of the hill tracts. The panoramic expanse of woods interspersed with meandering rivers, extents of horizon from mountain top -- all these are unique features of the natural beauty of hill tracks of Khagrachhori district. And accordingly bright colours like green, blue and others have been used on the canvases. Each of the figurative paintings represents the harmony and serenity of the nature of the region.

The artists have portrayed the diversified landscape, new hues and tints of colour in the sky during sunset, in their individualistic style.

Some have shown the interrelationship between man and nature using bright watercolour like red, green, blue, ash and different shades of mixed colour. These paintings are the narratives of the lifestyle of the indigenous people.

KMA Quayum's two pieces, Mountain Woman, Struggling Face and Debraj Misra's work Struggling for Survival represent exactly the opposite stories from the rest of the series.

Mountain Woman by Quayum is a portrait of an ethnic woman wearing a green bandana and black skirt. The painting has a burnt-sienna background, symbolically representing the miserable life of the inhabitants of the district in the midst of tranquil nature.

Each of the delicate lines portraying the wrinkles of an aged ethnic woman in Quayum's painting Struggling Face, narrates the dark story of struggle of the inhabitants of the region, who have been deprived for centuries.

Portraying the tired and bent human figures making a bamboo fence, Debraj Misra has shown the peoples' fight for survival in hill tracts in his painting Struggle for Survival.