Watercolour Reigns Supreme

Dhaka Watercolour Academy, a newly established art promotion organisation is aiming to popularise the watercolour medium among the promising painters of the country. Feted watercolourist Shahanoor Mamun and his wife Zannatun Shahanoor Rinti are the founders of the academy.
The couple feels watercolour is one of the lucid mediums which beautifully articulate nature and landscape. However, watercolour exhibitions are few and far between, and budding artists do not have sufficient knowledge of this medium. This medium can effectively depict nature and seasons of Bangladesh.
The popularity of watercolour is on the wane. The couple feels currently art camp and workshop on watercolour are very rare in the city which is really unpleasant for us. Gallery owners and the Faculty of Fine Arts of different universities should take initiative in this regard. A grand group watercolour exhibition should be organised in the city yearly. The medium has an attractive trait that can effectively depict our nature, greenery, riverine life and six seasons.
Dhaka Watercolour Academy has taken some initiatives in this regard. The students of the academy always go outdoor under the guidance of senior watercolourists for portraying surrounding atmospheres, greenery, banks of rivers, semi-urban and aquatic life. Besides, participating watercolourists are also visiting several districts and locations in the country to get inspiration. The academy invited artists usually are seasoned painters and they showed slides of their works at the class. They also briefly discussed on watercolour techniques, process and style of application.

Watercolour is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of Paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illustration since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages. However, its continuous history as an art medium begins with the Renaissance. However, among the many 20th-century artists who produced important works in watercolour, Wassily Kandinsky, Emil Nolde, Paul Klee, EgonSchiele, and Raoul Dufy must be mentioned. The major exponents included Charles Burchfield, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, and John Marin.
The current exhibition, which has been organised by Dhaka Watercolour Academy, is very significant because a number of gifted artists have taken part with their outstanding artworks. Samarjit Roy Chowdhury, Monirul Islam, Hamiduzzaman Khan, BirenShome, Chandra Shekhar Dey, Alokesh Ghosh, Ranjit Das, Mohammad Eunus, Jamal Ahmed, Kanak Chanpa Chakma, Goutam Chakraborty and others are notable participants at the show.  
Among the young talented artists -----Anukul Chandra Mojumdar, Azmeer Hossain, Kamaluddin, Bishwajit Goswami, Abdus Sattar Toufiq, Mong Mong Sho, Shahnoor Mamun, Shohag Parvez, Nazmul Haque Bappy, Monjur Rashid and others have also participated at the show.
Among the participating painters of the exposition, Samarjit Roy Chowdhury is the senior most. The USP of Samarjit's creations is an in-depth observation of rural Bengal and folk life, simple harmonic patterns, rural motifs, a tranquil ambiance and childhood nostalgia. Unquestionably Samarjit has carved a niche for himself with his hallmark style. His watercolours are a deep cognizance of pastoral Bengal and folk life - pastoral designs, serene atmospheres and personal reminiscences of early days. His center of attention is to create a kaleidoscopic pattern where one can find an inner meaning of mystery of nature.
Monirul Islam can interpret life's diverse dimensions with his noteworthy style, techniques where colours, lines, polished textures and forms blend in harmonisation. Controlling the medium and technique with accomplished mastery, Monir projects an aesthetic and stylistic uniqueness. It can be easily comprehended that his watercolours have some specialties which are his usage of subtle lines, warm colours and the balance between space and composition. Use of space is a vital aspect in the watercolours and the artist has worked with different geometric forms and unusual shapes, transforming them amazingly into tangible expressions.
Over the last four decades, Hamiduzzaman has been constantly trying to give a new language and fresh shape to his works. When we closely observe Hamiduzzaman's creations, we can easily recognise his preference for various unfamiliar and familiar forms. He likes to play with nature, form and structural orientations. Hamiduzzaman has internalised the inner essence of nature in many of his works. What is noteworthy is how he musters a deep capacity to feel and respond to the beauty of nature in his works. Celebration of colours and lines has created a new emotional and psychological depth in his works. His works are distinctive for aesthetic balance. His watercolours seem to be a flowing stream. He has tried to capture the mystery of nature and its different phases. His semi-abstraction of landscape, and the transparency of the watercolour technique, enhances his use of the background as a romantic view.
Biren Shome naturally explores his creativity through different modes of expression-realistic, semi-realistic, abstract, semi-abstract and figural expression. Nature comes to his paintings in varied ways and he always tries to blend other components of nature to his works. Sometimes broken forms and pure realistic objects have also been found in his works. Sometimes the painter is very conscious about the using of space and sometimes he finds comfortable with rigid compositions where space is very much inadequate.

Alokesh Ghosh, 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. Ghosh's water colours are superb in terms of his individual techniques and in creating the effects of water. The artist's technique is particularly based on smooth wash and thin colour. He controls his medium and his technique with a certain mastery. His ability to draw mass, volume and colour (both bright and subdued) and to create sensitive compositions are outstanding. His watercolours are refreshing and provide the spectators a sense of pleasure. His works are dynamic and have the right kind of restraint. He knows where to stop.
Ranjit Das is among the group of painters known for reflecting the said 21st century dilemmas in the context of changing and traditional Bangladeshi societies. Distinguished for his distinctive figurative style and incisive observations of the society where he finds subjects to limn. The artist has been playing a vital role to enhance the contemporary and cerebral approach to modern Bangladeshi art for a long time. It can be unquestionably stated that he is one of the most versatile Bangladeshi painters, equally adept in portraits, landscapes, visual rendering of socio-political and economic issues and other topics of the society. As an exponent of modernism, Ranjit gives a critical view to the society, first by highlighting the people and their struggle for originality and then by uttering discontentment pervading the social atmosphere as well as divulging the human dilemma in our society.
Mohammad Eunus' modes of expression are pure abstraction and abstract expressionism. He frequently changes the arrangement of his forms and compositions as well as the overall structure of his paintings. In his works, a harmonic relationship is visible through his lines, forms and textures marking an individual mode. He has meticulously gone through various phases of experimentation with colours, textures, lines, and tones. It has also been observed that the artist has meticulously blended the essential elements of his works. His workss can be explained in many ways where one can find the touch of mysticism; some can get the taste of harmony, melancholy or despair.

Ivy Zaman is well known for her theme-oriented sculptures and paintings. Her focus is on forms and pure compositions. The sensuous forms she creates, in the backdrop of nature, are as realistic as they are exquisitely elegant. Upon careful examination of her works, one finds that the artist tries to combine archetypal images with local materials found in her surroundings. She explores the boundaries of expressions with the varieties of birds, animals and botanical motifs like seeds, roots, trees, foliage as well as numerous indigenous forms. Her casts in bronze and other metals have become noteworthy in the Bangladeshi art circuit.
Goutam Chakraborty is known for his miniature paintings. In search of perfection, he devotes much time to a single piece of work. The painter has distinguished himself as a remarkable artist, revealing his creativity by using alluring forms, subtle and subdued colours on canvases with refreshing and lyrical forms. Art enthusiasts and collectors have had the opportunity to view his works at several group exhibitions in the city. His artworks are in varied sizes. He has used the canvases in semi-realistic, semi-abstract and sometimes in surrealistic modes. Goutam has worked on a number of themes. His world of animals is rich in symbolic effects. It consists of cats, horses and elephants. An interesting aspect of Goutam's series is the presence of crimson, yellow and a white bar across each composition, sometimes straight but often bent.
Anukul Chandra Mojumder is recognised for portraying inner conflict through his remarkable works. The central theme of his work often focuses on facial expressions and the human body. His latest works depict motherhood, the six seasons and their impact on nature, childhood and rustic ambiance. The USP of Anukul's paintings is an in-depth observation of rural Bengal- simple harmonic patterns, pastoral motifs, a tranquil atmosphere and childhood nostalgia. The artist traces his roots to a very remote area of Bagherhat. Swimming, fishing or roaming around the village were regular activities that occupied his childhood days. He draws from his imagination rather than employing models. Figures in motion and incomplete human forms are noticeable elements in his works. His subjects have a semi-realistic and surrealistic quality about them. He also marks coarse lines with his figures to add his sense of poetry to the works.
Kamal Uddin is a realist painter with his personal characteristics. He limns scenic beauty, celebrated personalities from different grounds, ordinary people in both bucolic and urban ambiances, streets and narrow lanes of Old Dhaka and different locations of the country. He prefers to go into detail with his themes and he is capable of adding a distinct smoothness to his works.
Shahnoor Mamun, considered one of the most dedicated among contemporary Bangladeshi painters, always tries to communicate with nature. Nature has always been ShahanoorMamun's greatest source of inspiration. He finds inspiration in the elaborate detailing of glimpses like light filtering through the leaves, sound of river's wave, the silence of nature, a drop of rain, singing crickets, dense foliage, the play of light and shadow in nature, flora and fauna as well as many others. Each of these elements contains a new story for him and an invitation to embark on a new journey. Mamun is a nature watercolourist. His keen aptitude is to draw the philosophical aspect of nature, its volume and colour to create sensitive vibes. Realism is his forte. Mamun has the ability to create an authentic setting as a backdrop for themes to intensify the drama. Most implementations of Mamun's watercolors technique are flat wash. When beginning he soaks the area of paper to be covered by the wash prior to mixing sufficient pigment to easily fill the entire area of the paper. He has also frequently used the glazing technique. This is a watercolour technique similar to a wash and the artist has used a thin, translucent colour applied over dry existing washes. It can be clearly perceived that Mamun has confidently applied a single stroke or several strokes and then left them for drying.