Reflecting urban existence
Asked how many awards he had won so far, Anis smiled modestly and said, 'I've won 17 awards so far. The latest one is the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant Award, this year, from Canada. My gold medal was for being 1st class 1st in my Masters in India.' Dwelling on why one should come and see his exhibition, Anis said, without hesitation, 'My work depicts modern urban existence in a subtle manner that does not hurt the eyes and yet transmits the necessary message.'
Everything presented on the various paper images are exact, definitely measured, and presented in a manner that one would like to stand and stare, despite being flummoxed by our everyday metropolis existence. Again the presentation is new in conception and presentation. Softness and subtlety in his work are his forte. The prints also drive home the point that urbanisation has not brought us peace despite the apparent development.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. 'The unplanned jerrybuilding has always been my theme in all my artistic works in the recent past. The mushrooming of pell-mell high rise buildings, along with problems of electrical wiring, over population, necessity of innumerable gas supply lines, filthy roads and highways have crammed our life. We are heading for heaven knows what in the apparently unplanned penchant for high-rise constructions. The Complexity series are thus my new endeavour,' Anis elaborated. The more recent works, seen at the exhibit, entitled Image of Dhaka, depict the same overwhelming scenario of countless iron rods, wooden planks, steel bars and scaffoldings.
Image of Dhaka-1, woodcut-2004, shows some iron bars, and some bits of stones included in the composition. The backdrop is in black and beige. The road in front is gray and dull but nevertheless the picture somehow lends tranquility due to the fine lines and use of muted tones. In Complexity-27 the angle of the subject is seen from a slanted angle. 'As the theme is the same, I try to vary the presentation of the composition by presenting the composition from different angles. As this is visual art, I have to maintain aestheticism,' Anis elaborates.
The windows of the vast apparently sophisticated constructions are done in mauve and gray. This is picturesque, as Anis has brought in the sky at the back in "barred clouds", one gently intermingling with another, in simple but confident sweeps of muted mauves and gentle emerald. However, the message is definite: that we are aiming at haphazard high-rise buildings but ruining the environment in the process. The simplicity, combined with subtlety, is undoubtedly admirable.
Talking about his experience as a student in Kolkata, India, and his guides and mentors in creating his unique vision, maintaining his own style and theme, Anis says that in India, he had been encouraged by Tarag Roy and Dipangar Das Gupta, who were teachers of the Department of Printmaking in Kolkata. In Bangladesh, it is his professors, who are now his colleagues and seniors, like Professor Mahmudul Haque, now Director General of the Bangladesh National Museum, Abul Barak Alvi and Rokeya Sultana, at the Fine Arts Dept in the recent past.
Anis' new exhibition is an eye opener. And a stop at the Divine Art Gallery is a must for the discerning viewer.