Three Versions - Three Determinants

The three of them were asked to take a sojourn around the near-most art gallery in Dhanmondi. They came back with images, discovery, and metaphors.  

SHILPANGON

The art gallery we visited today is “Shilpangon”.  The first paintings that I saw today comprised of scenarios from mountainous regions till rural Bangladesh. One painting that caught my eye in particular was that of a river. The reflection of the pink twilight sky on the shimmering water is what had attracted my attention. Paintings of the sunset sky were common and did not stand out as much as the river painting that I mentioned. Next, I saw somewhat abstract paintings. Amorphous shapes and strokes resembled the facial structure of people. What stood out for me was a long faced shape of a man/woman with the neck resembling that of a giraffe’s. It was a black and white sketch and looked like a well-pictured cartoon character. What I saw next was the memorable segment of today’s outing: different forms of the human body were intricately portrayed across small canvases. The object, presumably a woman was seen to position herself in a variety of forms. Each painting was done on a black background, with the woman being painted in white. Shades of blue were present here and there. Overall, this being my second art exhibition to visit, I was quite impressed by the painter’s work. I would have liked to see more variety in his scenery painting but the depiction of the woman in her different postures, probably made up for it. 

Shilpangon: Smell of Solitude  

The place seemed quite spooky as first. It looked as if we were invading into a haunted house, the doors were open as if anyone could break and enter we thought- until we realized we were in the wrong floor and a watchman came to direct us to the studio. As he opened the lock it felt as if the smell of solitude and creativity hovered around me. The room that we first entered to was full of 26x15’’ paintings or bigger, the painter worked with reflections and different expressions of the sky, the scenic beauty almost all the time see to involve water sides and boats or mountains. One painting that caught my eyes was how few people were warming their bodies around a fire pit with mountains standing firm behind them and a few small pieces of loose rocks in the bottom of the cliffs. Another exception was however a night road, some colorful vehicles carrying passengers to their destinations. The next room was fool of faces- the expressions, forms and structures were made as if each face is telling a story of its own. The adjacent room had the colorful bodies portraying women’s beauty; each stroke shows a form of intimacy of the painter towards each of the figures. The last room was full of boats, standing as a bunch or stating singularity with pride through the sketches of pens or merely pencils. The painter used watercolor mostly and he has a unique technique to mean the reflections of the land on the water bodies- the distributed lines resting calmly in black-blue or violet shades.

An Art Exhibition

I went to see an Art exhibition this morning. 

We come across this majestic looking party center that is still booked for weddings. As we enter the very left corner, I was confronted by art already before going inside the exhibition. We climb up the stairs and the man working tirelessly opens the door with his bundle of keys in hand. The moment we inside the room, I see a big colorful painting that captivates me the most throughout the most. It was depicted with many shades of blue; a dark brown simple boat in the middle of the ocean and closer to the sandy island, under the white shiny sky. Next I am met with a series of small, tiny frames telling me a story of life in the seas or oceans with simpler boats back in the day. The colour varies compared to the first as it was whiter and empty compared to the arising blue in the entrance. After the whiter and less dramatic paintings, I was surrounded with darkness by the paintings that were as remarkable as the first one. It showed the shadowed conflict of purple and black, with rocks and pebbles underneath. From the darkness, you can see three big mountains which grabs the attention of the painting itself.

Another painting which was breathtaking was a river with contrasting colour to go with the sunset in the picture. The sun was about to go down, and we see clear black water around trees and serendipity. The clear black water reminded me of the Ganges that has been destroyed by dirt and pollution. After the contrasting images of nature, I came across faces. These faces were usual like ours. They were crafted differently. Each had a way of expressing. One face was white and the background had a strange black to interpret what the face actually meant. One such took me by surprise was a face that looked as if it was a cage. The dark brutal colours on the face would scare you away if it were true. But to me, the intentions of the pictures reveal the darkness we try to hide under our majestic looking faces.

As we are almost about to wrap up our small amusing day out, the other section of the exhibition was the anatomy of the human body. These painting described the woman body and captured the moments of women that are simple yet blissful to look at. One such painting was the back of a bare women as a thin cloth is wrapped around her exposed body; she looks front at the darkness hoping for something to come and take her away.