Moon: A teenager's triumph in watercolours

Gouripur Rajbari, watercolour

Her Panam Nagar is a watercolour with dark hues depicting old and crumbling houses with branching trees. Passersby are seen going across the narrow street along with carts. The burnt sienna and umber of the houses match the green of the trees. The street below is a wonderful combination of yellow and violet-gray.

Gouripur Rajbari is another remarkably realistic piece which could well have been done by a more experienced artist. The white arches, pillars and domes are done with clarity and conciseness. The white of the stones shine out against the pale sky and the light green and brown ground in front. The spaces in between the pillars appear dark and mysterious, as if each stone has many stories to tell. The Temple, in watercolour, brings in a holy place with all its glory of a sculptured roof and arched windows. Other buildings in the background have also been depicted.

In contrast with the neat shapes of the old structures from the past is the Badibadh Basti in watercolour. In this depiction of a slum area, we see people against the backdrop of their crammed housing. Closeup Badibadh is another depiction of a makeshift home with tents and poles. Across the river is the silhouette of city development. Houses on stilts are seen in Bank of the Buriganga, which turns the spotlight on dwellings with tin roofs, sacking and poles. Out of the city depicts more huts on stilts, with taller buildings in the distance. People are seen standing or sitting on the road. Dockyard is another realistic watercolour. It deals with ships and their cargoes.

Kalabagan is a depiction of an open market that sells everything from clothes to fruit and vegetables. An attempt at poster colours is seen in Traditional dolls which homes in on brightly coloured dolls from different sources. The still life with fruit laid out on a newspaper is all agog with colours.

Somewhat different is Closeup that shows broken statues, stones, large leaves and sawn off trunks of trees. The statue is white while the rest of the composition is in shades of greens, browns and black.

Moon's work has earned compliments from art circles. Mahmudul Haque comments that Moon's work is as good as that of the young students of the Institute of Fine Arts, and should improve with time. He praised the landscapes in particular.