Showcasing the Sundarbans

A painting of Sundarbans by Ahmed Nazir

"The mangrove roots that stuck out of the water, at the base of the trees, appeared something quite unusual and abstract to me. Again the grass where the deer rest appears to have an equal surface all over, as if something has clipped them from the top. A boatman there explained to me that the grass had been clipped uniformly by the deer, as they stood and ate in that area. Thus one has horizontal and vertical characteristics in the Sundarbans that separate it from other forests," says the artist.

Ahmed Nazir does not do realistic work, but breaks and bends forms according to his own imagination and vision. All the work in the recent exhibition of the Sundarban scenes at Café Mango had been done in acrylic on paper. He has combined realism with abstraction in his most recent work to give the viewer the pleasure of seeing the pulsating lines, forms and colours of the forest.

The people in the Sundarbans are mostly fishermen and in one of the acrylics we see them caught in a storm when the sky turned red. In another picture we get the waters and the sky in the morning with a touch of mist. The artist, in his quest for catching the different images of nature depicted a morning scene. After the rains, without the bright sunshine, there was still light aplenty to see the different hues of nature. In another landscape, the light creeping in though the foliage created a dreamy image. Fishing and mending of nets are the subjects of the scenes.

Ahmed Nazir varied the view by including subjects seen through the pleasure boat's window-pane and past the raindrops falling on the panes. The images then become misty and hazy. We are given two options, one to view nature through the clear glass and the other to witness its beauty through the falling rain. The depiction of the mangrove aerial roots reaching out for air from under the salt filled water is also unique. If one shuts one eye and sees through the other they appear to be like people crossing some field.

The paintings along the stairs and the first floor were more imaginative than the others and in them the artist had combined elements from the moonscape and the Sundarbans. They were not very different from the artist's other paintings of the Dream series seen earlier at the Divine Gallery.

Ahmed Nazir is a painter and printmaker of international repute, having won awards both at home and overseas. At present he is working on entries to European contests.