Crème de la crème of creative propensity

A group exposition generates a ground that encourages interchange of opinions and observations among its partakingpainters. Often these shows demonstrate artists who share a common background, whether as students/teachers of the same institution or members of a certain group. The artworks may differ, based on themes, techniques and personal experiences but individuals' interactions play a pivotal role.
Under the curatorship of Priti Ali artists like Mustafa Monwar, Jamal Ahmed, Sheikh Afzal, Najma Akhter, Mini Karim, Afrozaa Jamil Konka, Rafi Haque, Jahangir Hossain, Proshanta Karmakar Buddha, Anisuzzaman Anis, Ronni Ahmmed and Priti Ali herself are in the list of participants of the expo.
Mustafa Monowar is the senior-most painter in the group. Monwar is well known for regenerating interest in puppetry in our country. He is considered one of the most dedicated among contemporary Bangladeshi watercolourists, has a passion for demonstrating the splendour of nature, serene environment, riverine life, cloudy skies and pastoral areas. His watercolours are outstanding in terms of his private techniques and in crafting the effects of water. His technique is predominantly based on soft wash and thin hues. He controls the medium and his personal technique with a distinct proficiency. He began his career as a pure naturist painter, demonstrating the panoramic world with its rich abundance of colours, views, light and shade. He also prefers seasonal changes, tranquil landscapes, sailing boats, blossoming flowers, ponds, mustard- green fields and more. He won a gold medal (in 1958) for his superb watercolour technique as a student in Calcutta (now Kolkata) Art College.
Celebrated artist Jamal Ahmed has been fruitfully articulatingnubile women in all their curvaceous beauty, panoramic view, daily chores of riverine people, rustic picturesque beauty, fishermen, oarsmen, boatmen, disadvantaged people and their daily activities, metropolis, bauls and more. Realism is his forte and he meticulously portrays the figures and rightfully gives emotion and sensation to the protagonists.His paintings are conspicuous because of his malleable ground and subdued tone. The artist has the capability to create anunpretentious milieu as a background for protagonists to intensify the painting.  
Sheikh Afzal Hossain is a pure realist painter with a passion for portraying the slum environment, street children, women and neglected people in both urban and rural settings. At the exhibition, one of his paintings depicts a fisherman going to hunt fish with his tiny son. Another image represents the relationship between mother and her child. Usually his themes are very touching and the painter always tries to construct a story which is very familiar to ourlife. Afzalis also well-known for portraying luminaries from different sectors in our country.
Among the participating painters, Najma Akhter is one of them whose approach can be considered as pure abstract expressionism. The painter has been inspired by nature and its mysterious aspects. She comprehends nature and its varied elements appear to her in a vibrant way. Her works appear as pieces of land where she cultivates her mind's perception and philosophical experience. Her works consist of strong formal elements, such as colour, shape, balance, depth, composition, and scale. Najma's early palette consists of quiet colours. However, her colours have begun to darken dramatically in recent years. Increasingly, the painter has used brown, emerald green and black. Also, her motifs change from an open to a closed form. Because her paintings do not have any given subject matter, this change of colour and form is vital.
Mini Karim paints across a wide range of themes related to nature, human feelings and sensations, environment, Sundarbans mangrove forest, floral world, mystery bard Lalon, Rickshaw, bullock cart and more. Some of his abstractions are purely colour and form oriented. Most motifs of her paintings have been taken from nature, which she finds as an ever-changing secretive chapter.Considering some paintings at the exhibition, it is apparent that the painter likes to play with texture. She feels that it has happened unintentionally. Some of her works look matured. Another aspect of Mini's work is her demonstration of the aesthetic elements. It has been comprehended that Mini haspracticedwith texture and illusion for surface effects. Space has been created on the canvas although some of the colours have been applied flat.
Afrozaa Jamil Konka made a move from Oriental to Realistic Art in her early days. Though she changed her field of study, she tries to maintain a correlation between her present working style and Oriental Art. She mainly focuses on the female visage.By and large female appearances are represented, which voice her dreams, hopes and aspirations. She usually concentrates on the burning issues in our society. As a painter, she feels that she has some commitments to the society by means of her musings over socially contentious causes. At the exhibition, two of her paintings highlight the dilemmas of acid victims. The faces symbolise their dreams, beliefs and desires. She reveals her views with expressions -- in bold lines, uneven textures and bright colours. Birds have been placed in the limelight by the artist for years. Scrupulous brush strokes and subdued colours (sometimes vibrant) are the prime characteristics in her paintings.
Rafi Haque is a fervent painter whose major aim is to express his inner world through art. His soul is always in search of a space where an assorting of vital colours comes forth to represent suffering and ecstasy. His space is filled up sometimes with bright and, at other times paradoxically, subdued colours. One could be easily drawn to Rafi's works, as the mood is relaxed and uncluttered. It is obvious that the painter has experimented with layers of colours and tonality. He seems to be quite conscious about the use of space in his paintings.
Jahangir Hossain's canvases are engrossed with a single figure with varied movements. His mode of expression is usually almost realistic, depicting male and female figures with different configurations. His works are suggestive of the human body. The painter often portrays human forms in unusual ways. His prime aim is to highlight the movements of human body and also to emphasise on the inner struggle and torment of human beings. At times, his work has focused on twisted figures. His preferred subjects include intimate relationships.The background of most of his compositions is occupied by delightful colours and soft tones. Throughout his career, Jahangir has concentrated on a number of themes. Sometimes his mode of expression can be considered to be figurative expressionistic and at times he has tinted light and forms through the approach of abstractionism.
Proshanta Karmakar Buddha has successfully documented appealing women in all their statuesque beauty in the backdrop of historical milieu. The painter has mingled cultural heritage with loveliness of women in his pure realistic based paintings. Cultural heritage is one of his prime concerns and the painter has been constantly trying to give a new language and fresh shape to his paintings. Bauls, snake charmers, bedeys (the people of the community who live and eat on boats) and mendicants have also appeared in his paintings. When we closely observe Proshanta's paintings, we can easily recognise his affinity for rich textured, quiet colours with various familiar compositions, andthe artist identifies himself with the cultural heritage of the country.
Anisuzzaman Anis has now become one of the significant woodcut printmakers in our country and his work zooms in on urban architecture, construction of human accommodation, urban constructions, and a city's structural design.In recent years, he has pondered on floral imagery and he meticulously draws flowers, leaves with superbly drawnbranches of trees through acrylic medium, which could be considered similar to the genre of photorealism. A sense of quiet contemplation pervades Anis's paintings and the flowers provide a pure rhythmic aura. He goes to details in floral life of nature and he can find a spiritual strength through the topic. Anis is one of the earnest printmaker-cum-painters who plays with shadows and light which have been obviously demonstrated by his exploratory observation.
Ronni Ahmmed is known as a thoughtful artist, whose works invite viewers to engage cerebrally with his surrealistic imagesthat denote the motifs and narratives of different religions and beliefs, sometimes demonstrate unexpected combinations and absurdity. Expressions of the philosophical movementsare very much connected to his paintings. His paintings hold a kind of illusory atmosphere, which seems unfamiliar to our art milieu. Absurdity, mockery, brutality, power play, hypocrisy, hallucination, loneliness, science -- all these get diffused in his vision.His works focus on the connection between spiritual suffering and socio-political upheaval, a condition caused by the lack of spiritual enrichment.
Priti Ali is an ardent follower of pure abstract expressionism, who is now quite active in Dhaka art scene. Her paintings are very much connected to humans' affection, ecstasy, anguish and isolation. She is an emotionally charged painter and she draws what she feels from the core of her soul. Her paintings can be explained in many ways where one can find the touch of mysticism; some can get the taste of harmony, melancholy or despair. In her paintings, one feels the lament of a lonely soul, an underlying sorrow or a feeling of bareness. As an intense onlooker, Priti's manipulation of forms, sprinkled patterns and cognizant brush strokes create a language simultaneously natural and contrived. Her palette swings between mellow and bold, her strokes between rugged and controlled conjuring up a visual playground for joy and glee. It is very apparent at the exhibition that Priti has now hooked herself with bright colours for bringing the internal articulations of concrete formations of paintings. Besides this, the painter also constantly experiments with forms and compositions. The artist enjoys her liberty to recognise herself with her structuring of varied shapes and unusual patterns that are apparently harmonised and technically phenomenal. She strives to proceed with a certain style that has become a personal hallmark for her works. Sheintermingles sensation and intelligence, believed to have been applied to utilise abstract expressionism in her paintings. Her paintings emerge to be sparkling and dynamic because of the use of profuse shades and evocative textures. Priti bears witness to the insanity of current times through an eruption of vicious colours in different layers. The eruption of colours is accompanied by contrast, and the reality of texture is created in her abstract expressions. It has also been observed that the artist has meticulously blended the essential elements of her paintings.