Ivy's outgoing outlook
"All around me is sculpture, as I see it: in the natural setting of nature in my childhood days in Bogra with the tall mango and guava trees and their fruit that fell aplenty on the grass below, and even the furniture pieces in my sitting room: when I can convert this into forms and shapes that simply pleases the mind I have related it to fine arts," Ivy says. "In my early days at the Fine Arts Institute human figures intrigued me enormously and it still does, as you see in my latest joint venture at Shilpangan." Her numerous trips to the Sundarbans widened her horizon further to creating amazing thought-provoking sculptor shapes in bronze and white cement. In 2003, her trip to Korea widened her vision further with her being exposed to sculpture from all over the world and she exchanged ideas and information with her numerous other fellow sculptors at Korea.
She is bold in her concepts: at the same time, she has not departed very far from idylls of the past, despite her quest for the suavity of the modern world. Thus, though living in a university flat, she has kept the boats sails, billowy clouds and the emerald foliage of her Bogra days. The details of a seedpod, the curves of the rooftops of Santal habitation and simple animal shapes enter her creation. The fatigue, frustration and joy of simple workers also come within her scope. An expecting mother, the budding pea-pod and resting birds are included in her creations in different mediums.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. In a country which one frowned on sculpture, the step into the nouveau world of geometrical renderings of faces and figures has wins many cheers. Again, sculpting, as a genre, is not easy to manoeuvre. It requires muscle power, know-how, patience and indomitable courage. One has to imagine, plan, labour and toil. One can't just go through academic feats and exposure to the 3-D world of fine arts to get the fascinating effect that Ivy gets in her sculpture. Working over burning furnaces and trundling off to old Dhaka in the traffic jams, dust and heat to get bronze bits of statues, is no easy task for a woman with, a home to tend to later.
Twelve of her sculptor pieces now decorate the National Museum premises. One gigantic red Angry Cat is exhibited at the BRAC Centre, after having reigned over at the Osmany Memorial Hall in 2004 Asian Biennale. Meanwhile, a more-than-life-size statue of Begum Rokeya is there in her country home in Rangpur for all to admire; and her seated Buddha is in Korea. Soft-spoken but determined. This artist, teacher-cum-mother of two, has worked relentlessly, and striven through all odds. Hats off to such an enterprising sculptor.