Sharbari Roy Choudhury paints nature and its various aspects with her individual style and technique. She portrays different types of themes but all of her paintings have a great similarity in terms of tone, textural intensity and approach of shades. Her modes of expressions are regarded as realism, semi-abstraction, abstract expressionism and expressionism. It could be said that the painter feels she is indebted to nature because she has been greatly influenced by natural surroundings. Nature possibly comes to her life in a unique way lending to her creative productions a taste of ingenuous tranquilly and quietness.
Sharbari is the daughter of pre-eminent artist Samarjit Roy Choudhury, one of the prominent figures in the Bangladeshi art circuit who is known for using folk motifs. The artist has carved a niche for himself with his hallmark style. His daughter looks ready to do the same. Some of Sharbari's paintings are results of a profound observation of floral life--demonstrating harmonic patterns and serene forms. She also superbly draws cactus and its lovely appeal has been well grasped by her paintings. Her practice on works has perfected her profound appreciation of harmony in nature. Her flowers imbibe in us a soothing and tranquil sensitivity.
Sharbari's works present a combination of different eye-catching forms, straight broad lines, modern geometric patterns and abstract forms. Besides, restless curves, and broken lines make her images noteworthy. Polished, scribbles (sometimes) and thick lines are crisscrossed all over her paintings. Most of her lines are very polished. The lines help create an individual language, highlighting the modern approach in her paintings.
Apart from lines, ambiguous shapes, geometric and non-geometric forms, Sharbari also uses primary colours so that she can create a flavour of inner natural world. Her selection of colours is really praiseworthy while her constant experimentation on hues gives her creations a meaningful and expressive touch. The colours frequently used are azure, red, crimson, black, yellow, pale blue and emerald green. Acrylic is predominately used in her works. Adroit application of light and shades is also evident.
It is noticeable that Sharbari has hooked herself with bright colours for bringing the internal articulations of concrete formations of paintings. She intermingles sensation and intelligence, believed 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. The painter bears witness to the insanity of current times in 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 expression.
It has also been observed that the artist meticulously blended the essential elements of her paintings. 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. Her mode of expression have been changed a number of times, but the painter successfully established her personal trademark through all her creations. Her style is unquestionably unique, individualised and expressive. In her paintings, one feels the lament of a lonely soul, an underlying sorrow or a feeling of bareness.
A thoughtful and imaginative painter, Sharbari has taken her colours from nature and that is why colour is the most significant aspect in her paintings. She likes to experiment with colour in all its various facets. She applies colour directly, piling up thick layers on the canvas. The layers provide a distinctive touch to Sharbari's work and that is why her canvas carries an individual trademark. She has concentrated on applying colours. Deep layers of colours provide a unique texture to her canvas and that is why her canvas carries a singular hallmark. Her paintings create an expression on the essence of a colour and what the colours really means. Over the years, Sharbari has developed this technique, which is very expensive and time consuming, requiring immense effort and devotion.
When Sharbari gets immersed with her paintings, she loses herself. She is recognised for nurturing enough gallantry to destroy her laborious productions if she finds them unsatisfactory and therefore to create a new pattern, as the world of painting surrounds her from all possible dimensions. She most certainly does not seem to relent and on the contrary cannot help but breathe life into each painting. In this very way Sharbari applies colours and creates forms, lines and compositions. She puts layers upon layers of paint and draws forms and objects continuously, until she feels that she has achieved what she 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.
Sharbari's intention has been to hold the neglected or ignored sight of our surroundings and splendour of nature in transitory moments. She has used nature's distinctive colour as her principal source for motifs and forms. For example, many of her paintings feature damp or salt contaminated grounds and sometimes feature cactus or blossoming flowers growing from moisture grounds, which articulate volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, harsh reality, inhumanity and social and political disorders in the universe.
Sharbari is not a figurative painter. She portrays the individual world and its mysterious phases through her personal notion, experience and thought process. It can be easily said her paintings have been recorded through her inner feelings and deep observation of her living place, existence and nostalgia. She uses sweeping strokes, which bring an animated hallmark to her works. Her strokes, lines and scattered forms are all simultaneously natural and create a language which is alien to us. Her colour is sometimes mellow and appears rich and smooth. Her soul is always on the lookout for space where the green, azure, red, crimson, off-white and yellow are filled with great joy and ecstasy.
In Wassily Kandinsky's description of art, the inner element is most important, without it, no work of art can exist. Sharbari blends emotion and intelligence in her paintings believed to employ abstract expressionism. Her works appear to be sparkling and dynamic because of the use of profuse shades and evocative textures. Flamboyant colours, malleable brush-strokes, and imagery are noticeable features in the impressive paintings of Sharbari, a gifted painter who is going to introduce herself in Dhaka's local art scene with her first solo exhibition which would be quite important in the artist's career.
The writer is an art critic
and cultural curator
