Shahadat aims high
With his shift to Paris, his style and medium changed. He was drawn to images though in an abstract manner. While his earlier work dealt with dreams and memories, the later work did not bring in ethereal and poetic images, but rather the expression of a tormented soul in terms of symbols and metaphors. His present images are abstract, intense and haunting. He presents a world "torn between the material and the ethereal". Once again his forms are geometrical and solid harking back to his Existence '71.
His paintings are scattered with primitive images and symbols. The heavy, geometrical figures remind one of the totems of primitive cultures. The viewer is moved by the artist's desire for creating something universal and solid in structure. His use of blues, greens, reds and yellows balance and shape images in space, bringing out the themes of stars and moon along with totems. Combining oil and acrylic, the artist takes the viewer into a journey of his own imagination. He also uses Japanese creased paper on canvas to create undulations and vibrations of optic images.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Existence '71 (7) in paper, acrylic oil on canvas brings a red, angry triangular face with dazzling gem like details of the subject reduced to geometric shapes. Similarly Existence 71, (5), (4) and (3) bring strange human heads reduced to stiff statues, ( as in wood or stone), in yellow, blue, purple and red -- stirring the human mind. Women and Bird, a collage, presents silhouettes of women with large looming bird at the back. Sweeps of green and gold make the backdrop. Dance, in water-colour, presents abstract images, like a mass of swirling birds or fish, or strange, haunting human forms. Rainy season, in water colour , is again like some tinted glass painting in a church, with a myriad of tiny colours , ranging from orange and green to blue and purple. Illford, collages of similar shapes, bring in wild, pulsating colours, along with forms taken from photography.
Shahadat has exhibited in many countries, including Norway, Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, France, Cuba, Japan, Korea , China and Bangladesh. The current exhibition is sponsored by the Society for Promotion of Bangladeshi Art.