Scrutinising diverse twists of cosmopolitan life

Realism is largely believed to have commenced modern art. Plainly, this is due to its opinion that daily chores and living surrounding ambiance are suitable subjects for art. Realism concentrates on the progressive aims of modernism, questing for novel truths through the reassessment and debunking of traditional systems of values and beliefs. Realism concerned itself with how life was planned socially, economically, politically, and culturally in the mid-nineteenth century. This led to unyielding, sometimes terrible and awful portrayals of life's distasteful moments and many more. Realism was the first openly anti-institutional, non-conformist art movement. Sultan Ishtiaque is one of the earnest followers of realism in our country and his thinking process and belief engulfed the genre of art. It has been deeply observed his capability to draw mass and their unending struggle, deep pain, surrounding dimension, textural malleability and he constructs sensitive compositions, which are really remarkable. His paintings are fresh, strongly built (in the sense of density of colours) and provide the spectators a sense of pleasure. A socially conscious artist, Sultan paints people, capturing the diverse moments of their social bindings. He uses loose brushstrokes to delineate the various elements in his compositions, in which the subjects provide movement and colour, living scenes in which light and the atmosphere create a mysterious effect.

In recent times, city's hustle and bustle life and also traffic jam have engrossed many of his paintings. He has realistically portrayed the varied types of vehicles and congested roads and rushing pedestrians in a very pragmatic way. Traffic jam has now become common phenomenon in our lives. Heavy traffic can cause serious physical and mental problems, including stress and aggression resulting in road rage. In addition to pain, suffering and loss of life, road accidents have significant economic and social cost, which are not easy to measure in monetary terms. As a dweller of the city, Sultan regularly faces these dilemmas and he has worked in the series with great zeal and eagerness. He has a pair of capable hands and intense observation allowing him to fabulously draw the topic. He has also intensely detected the cosmopolitan life where the painter gets inadequate touch of pure soul, feeling and sensation. All things have been moving with a robotic impression.
Sultan began his career as a naturist painter. He prefers seasonal transformation, winter mornings, forests, rainy days, water vessels and blue skies. Some of his realistic paintings give us a view of sun's light filtering through the leaves of trees.

Sultan emotionally paints the Old Dhaka and its narrow and congested road, the adjacent ambiance of dockyards. The massiveness of dockyards and its vibes of light and shadow ponder him to focus on the subject. The labourious and diverse activities in dockyards have been deeply imprinted in his mind. He elaborately portrays the ship building process, drudgers engrossed with works, upside down ships and cargos under repair, scrap metals of ships scattered on the ground and plying ships on docks. He also portrays small and big boats in all their possible varieties as well as repairing and maintenance activities around the banks of the rivers. His paintings also bear an in-depth analysis into Old Dhaka and the surrounding atmosphere of dockyards. He intimately observes the city's unplanned urbanisation, ruined richness of heritage, changing socio-political and economic conditions. For deeper inspiration and bringing variation in his thematic works, the artist has passionately visited different parts of Old Dhaka and  other parts of the country---- Chawkbazar, Farashganj, Bara Katra, ChotoKatra, banks of the Buriganga River and Shitalakhya River, Sadarghat, Keraniganj,Panam Nagar and many more places.
Dockyards employ great number of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labours in an unhygienic environment. The life is very harsh and unpleasant there and the toiler's daily chores, ecstasies, anguishes and dreams can also be discerned some of his works. He prefers to paint the people he knows. Therefore his neighboring subject is his first, and favourite field of investigation. He never finds it a problem to be- treated as a storyteller of a humanistic tradition, classical in his painting approach, as long as it shows the compassion and the emotions he experiences when painting his subjects.
Sultan fervently paints Old Dhaka with its vibrant activities, downtrodden people and their daily chores, rickshaw pullers, narrow alleys, condensed habitations, wrecked buildings, cluttered wires, scattered across roads, jam-packed atmosphere, etc. He does not draw any single figure; he depicts people in masses in different approaches and aided by sufferings, torments, bliss and ecstasies. The artist also closely scrutinises the metropolis' unplanned urbanisation, ruined richness of heritage, changing socio-political and economic conditions. For deeper inspiration and bringing variation in his thematic works, the artist has passionately visited different parts of the city and other parts of the country. He  also digs into Panam Nagar in his works. He has visited the place and realises his observations of the almost ruined city through his paintings. He has emphasised the subject to understand its historical significance. Panam Nagar, the earliest city of Sonargaon, rose up as a gorgeous construction in the last quarter of the thirteenth century. When the Mughals took control of Sonargaon, they constructed highways and bridges and gave a new look to Sonargaon and Panam City.
Most of his works have a great tendency towards study based simultaneously with experimentation of various themes and objects. Besides works produced by water and pencil, Sultan has also contributed several oil paintings. He is comfortable in oil medium as it gives him an opportunity to enjoy its liberty and suppleness. He spends enough time whenever he is to complete a piece of oil painting. Observing his works thoroughly, one can easily feel the apparently lucid tonalities running smooth before the eye. He tries to express his feelings through simple realistic articulation, though shades differ from time to time in his works.

Sultan has a passion in meticulous curation of rural and semi-urban issues with vibrant shades. His watercolours are revitalising and offer the viewers with a sense of bliss. His depictions are jovial and have the right kind of resilience, that is to say, he knows where to bring things to an end. In his short career, he has developed a style in watercolour medium. The medium's lucidity gives him a freedom to express his creativity properly. His watercolours have been done by swift brushstrokes. He possesses sufficient perseverance and potentials necessary for transforming visual insight of the world into a heart-rending approach. He draws pleasure from painting which moves his creative soul and enables him to translate language, colour and composition. In the process, the viewer gets to know the artist's individuality and mental state at the time of painting.
When Sultan gets immersed with his paintings, he loses himself. He is recognised for nurturing enough gallantry to destroy his labourious productions if he finds them unsatisfactory and therefore to create a new pattern, as the world of painting surrounds him from all possible dimensions. He most certainly does not seem to relent and on the contrary cannot help but breathe life into each painting. In this very way Sultan applies colours and creates mind-boggling images. He puts layers upon layers of paint and draws objects continuously, until he feels that he has achieved what he has been striving for. The outcome is a contemplative, subtly balanced arrangement of colours and space that does not fail to draw an art enthusiast's eyes.

Sultan has a passion in meticulous curation of rural and semi-urban issues with vibrant shades. His watercolours are revitalising and offer the viewers with a sense of bliss. His depictions are jovial and have the right kind of resilience, that is to say, he knows where to bring things to an end. In his career, he has developed a style in watercolour medium. The medium's lucidity gives him a freedom to express his creativity properly. His watercolours have been done by swift brushstrokes. He possesses sufficient perseverance and potentials necessary for transforming visual insight of the world into a heart-rending approach. He draws pleasure from painting which moves his creative soul and enables him to translate language, colour and composition. In the process, the viewer gets to know the artist's individuality and mental state at the time of painting.
Sultan's creative process is spontaneous, touching, meticulous and detailed. His mode of expression is realistic. The painter can both thicken and minimise his colours while applying varied layers of hues. Most of his paintings bring forth a touching quality. Lighting is a prominent feature in the paintings and the artist generally prefers luminous light. His figures look both immobile and lively where expressions of subjects are quite noticeable. His themes and approaches explore the physical and often illusive emotional realms closely.