Positive paths in printmaking

Lingering Memories 1

Asked to talk about the theme of his display, 37 years-old Rafi Haque said, " I've worked with an anti-war theme, which one might have seen in my earlier works in joint exhibits in the city. I've worked with my individual feelings which were coloured by my trip to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in 1998 and my prints depicts burnt and curled human figures which convey the depth to which human cruelty, barbarity and destruction can sink. I believe that humanity was totally lost during World War II. Although I did not see the genocide in our own country in 1971, I believe that there was tremendous suffering in Bangladesh as well, and the concept of man's cruelty to man has been focused in a local way too in my work. My other four solos were held overseas in Japan, France and Poland so that I could transmit my observations on a wide scale. My two earlier local solos had been in Sylhet ( invited there by 'Shaittya Sanskritik Parishad') and Dhaka."

Dwelling on his choice of his muted soft colours, Rafi Haque said that he'd used bronze, sepia, hints of vermilion and tangerine, offset by jet-black and egret white. "I feel that we're in a dark and dismal area, with confused concepts, as we're entangled in one warfare or another, studying the world globally and even looking inward towards oneself. There are dissentions and destruction in the subcontinent too," he said. He added that his effort is to egg mankind to wake up and find a way out of this confusion and chaos that wraps it like some overwhelming black cloud. One will find, Rafi Haque believes, work from the subcontinent as comparatively dull when seen against the works of European artists. He feels that our choice of hues is tinged by our stifling economic, social and political conditions of our countries.

He has used burnt paper in his work, Rafi Haque added, to reflect "social" ruination which reflect misrule and mayhem all over the world as in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. The suffering and holocaust is seen worldwide, he insisted. The occasional bring colours are used to depict man's attempts to flee from the dismal fate. Sepia, shades of copper, bronze and burnt sienna prevail in his work . They are there to drive home the point that there is immeasurable and unrelieved pain and suffering in man's history and in contemporary times too. The fine etchings -- which are normally brought in with nitric acid on copper or zinc plates -- have been brought in even without the use of acid in one piece and this is to protest against the environmental pollution. Here the print-maker points out that the use of acid is harmful for the artist's health. Some of the 33 prints in the display had been included in France, last month, where 880 artists from almost 100 countries had taken part, informed the energetic and enthusiastic print-maker, who shot up like some star in the sky way back in 1988 with his first award as the best Printmaker from the Fine Arts Institute, DU.

Asked if it is difficult to make a living in Bangladesh, Rafi Haque said, " I once thought that a starving existence in the garret or garage was the fate of artists of past or ones in Bangladesh today but now I realize that this is a fate of artists world over with some exceptions. In our country there is no help from the government as is found at times in Japan and Europe , where I've had the occasion to live and work."

"I was treated like a celebrity in Chamalieres, France, and this was a big ego boost for me coming from a developing country. To get the first prize for print-making was some achievement for a relatively young artist like me: it was like winning the national lottery. I got the opportunity to rub shoulders with major artists from different parts of the world, an experience which was mind-expanding for me," Rafi Haque commented about his recent award. "Art criticism in Europe, I believe, is much more constructive than what we find in Bangladesh," he added as his final comment.