Images from Ibsen's life and plays
Fayza Haq
The art exhibition featuring images of Ibsen and his plays by 32 Bangladeshi artists, held last year in Dhaka, has found a permanent position in the Ibsen Museum in Norway. This has been organised by the Centre for Asian Theatre (CAT) and the Norwegian Embassy and marks the playwright and poets' 179th birthday. This endeavour creates a cultural bridge between Norway and Bangladesh. It has created an opportunity for works by Bangladeshi artists to be appreciated by foreign critiques. It also provides Norwegians a chance to study the Bangladeshi art scene. The works don't only mirror Ibsen's work but at times deconstruct them and build them up again. The project was not simple as the text does not easily give way to images but nevertheless the artists projected the true spirit of the life and work of Ibsen. The collection includes paintings by Ahmed Shamsuddaha, Alekesh Ghosh, Shahjahan Ahmed Bikash, Shishir Bhattachajee, Mansur Ul Karim, Ranjit Das, Sheikh Afzal, Rafi Haque, Goutam Chakrabarti, Rokeya Sultana and others. Shamsuddaha's Oil, Ibsen has a lightening streak, which appears to give life to a tree trunk that bears resemblance to the playwright's head. He is suspended and appears to take nourishment from the storm. Bathed in light, containing a moor and snow in the backdrop is Alokesh Ghosh's portrait of Ibsen in acrylic. Shahjahan Ahmed Bikash's oil, Character and personality has feathers for The Wild Duck included in the portraiture. The portrait appears to be forgotten and yellowing. Symbols of deception and death as found in Ibsen's plays are seen in Shishir Bhattacharjee's untitled acrylic. The caged and framed characters of Ibsen's plays are seen as a gray mass in Bipul Shah's Spirit of Brand, done in oil. Ranjit Das in his untitled oil shows faces of a couple in love -- Agnes and Einer -- with a vague image of a church in the back. To delineate seduction in the air for poetry lovers are Goutam Chakrabarti's faceless blue and gray characters. The wax-like contemplative portrait of Ibsen shows the crumbling of old social values in the backdrop. Dilara Begum Jolly portrays Ibsen's 'Nora' as part woman and part bird. In the painting, Nora is caged and expected to sing and dance. The woman in Rokeya Sultana's Doll's House holds on to a snake -- referring to the 'original sin', trying to break free. The subject is shown as dreaming and floating in sunlit air. Jamal Ahmed's Destiny depicts Hedda Gabler belonging to a class that is on the verge of extinction. The Goethe Institut celebrated the day with recitation of Ibsen's works, in German, Bangla and English on the evening of 22nd March.
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Samples of paintings on Ibsen by Bangladeshi artists |
