Viewers are walking among the paintings that are displayed at the Zainul Art Gallery. -Tarik Sajib
A six-day long '7th Oriental Painting Exhibition', began on October 9, is currently underway in the Zainul Art Gallery of the Faculty of Fine Art under Dhaka University. Organized by Oriental Painting Study Group (OPSG), the exhibition is featuring 80 colorful paintings created by 25 local and 26 Indian artists.
The purpose of holding this exhibition is to inspire both artists and art connoisseurs in searching their cultural roots and to nurture the art heritage of our own rather than indulging in Western Art trend. We, by birth, inherit the aesthetic sense and thoughts revolving around the oriental way of life.
The artworks, displayed at the exhibition, are reflective of that sense and thoughts with regard to their media, techniques and subjects. Mostly following the watercolor-based oriental painting techniques, each paintings gives a dreamy images of the objects, mostly women in midst of nature. However, there also some experimental works done in other mediums such as tempers, brush drawings, acrylic and mixed media.
The Indian artists mostly focused on the existence of women in midst of nature. For example, Mintu Naiya's Awating Woman depicts image of a woman sitting underneath a tree on the bank of a river as if the legendary character Radha is waiting for Lord Krishna.
He created a dreamy illusion by using wash technique on his watercolour-based painting. Paintings by local artists mostly depicted the social issues. For example, Bangladeshi artist Eite Rajbongshi's Formalin, a watercolor painting depicted how formalin is poisonous to food. His painting is a metaphoric one as it detailed couple of snakes surrounding an apple.
Another example of social issue depicted on Fahmida Haque Mahi's watercolor and pencil artworks. Titled Drishtir Obokkhoy, the paining shows a man looking at a girl. The girl is wearing a saree and a beautiful bird is sitting on her shoulder. The tree leaves around the girl and the bird itself resembles the purity or the innocence of the girl while the man's look represent taking away that purity.
Zahid Mustafa's Gayen and Kantideb Adhikary's Selfie are also examples of quality experimentations. The exhibition will remain open till October 14 from 11am to 8pm everyday.
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