Beautiful Bengal in Mokhlesur Rahmans canvas
The artists 8th solo exhibition underway at Shilpangan Gallery
A two-week solo exhibition titled Beautiful Bengal (Ruposhi Bangla) by artist Mokhlesur Rahman is now on display at Shilpangan Gallery in the capitals Dhanmondi area. The exhibition is open to all everyday from 3pm to 8pm till February 10. Earlier on January 28, Pierre Mayaudon, Ambassador Delegation of The European Union to Bangladesh inaugurated the eighth solo exhibition of Mokhlesur Rahman on the gallery premises, while Farooq Sobhan, former foreign secretary and president, Bangladesh Enterprise Institute was present as special guest and art connoisseur and columnist Rubana Huq was present as guest of honour.
Like the previous one, the theme of the current exhibition too is Beautiful Bengal. Forty artworks with use of different means are on display here. Apart from printmaking, the other means he used here are acrylic, water colour and oil paint.
Mokhlesur Rahman virtually tries to touch the spheres of the blue sky through his artworks. Again at times he uses his brush to depict the horizon where the streams pierce through wide green fields in winding courses, often carrying sailing boats on their surface. His canvas portrays in a wonderful manner the Beautiful Bengal of Jibanananda Das. If Jibanananda Das is called the Poet of Rophoshi Bangla or Beautiful Bengal, Mokhlesur Rahman could be dubbed as the Painter of Ruposhi Bangla.
His canvas often appears abstract and at times half abstract in portraying the nature. His paintings introduce rice fields, trees, households, human figures and water lilies in water bodies in different contexts. But all his artworks reflect the artists deep feeling for the nature. He wants to see the entire horizon with a birds eye view.
Born in southwestern Shariatpur, Mokhlesur Rahman studied in Printmaking at the Institute of Fine Arts at Dhaka University and found as his teachers some pioneers in the field in Bangladesh like artists Shafiuddin Ahmed, Mohammad Kibria and Abul Barak Alvi. The woodcuts of artist Rafiqunnabi also encouraged him.
Initially, Mokhlesur Rahman was focused to lithography and aching. Later he was busy for a long time with woodcut. Now he is dedicating most of his efforts to painting. Most of his works are based on acrylics. Some of his acrylic works are now on display in the ongoing exhibition, which demonstrates his maturity in texture.
Mokhlesur Rahman experimented much with printmaking. Apart from papers, he also performed printing on cloths and gamchha, which are typically used by ordinary people in the country. However, his works on cloths are not on the current display as he plans to stage a separate exhibition with those works later. Nets appeared as another canvas of his artworks, which are expected to draw the visitors attention.
Mokhlesur Rahman took part at a number of exhibitions at home and abroad including Japan, Germany, France and Italy and received several awards at national and international levels. Mentionable among those are Grand Prize at the 10th Biennial Asian Art Exhibition in 2001 and the Honour Award in a group exhibition staged by Saju Art Gallery in the same year in Dhaka. He drew massive appreciation for his woodcut print works on Jamdani saree at the 55th Venice Biennial. l
Artcle Courtesy: Ayub Bhuiyan
