Poetry in dots and lines
Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts, Dhaka December, 2003
Mohammad Fokhrul Islam’s creations don’t necessarily depict him fully. ‘For me painting or creating a work of art is the simplest way to express my feelings, emotions and love. When I try to prove myself as an artist and I fail to create an art form, it becomes only a quest to prove something that goes beyond the grammar of art. Just as one cannot measure love or affection, I hesitate to pass judgment on my artwork. If my art moves you and touches your heart, even in a slight way, I will be contented’, Fokhrul declares.
Lines and dots prevail in Fokhrul’s work. His pictorial surface is full of dots in varied shades of gray and large spread-out forms. His paintings encompass the span of the horizon and give viewers the illusion of touch. The dots, lines and muted colours take the viewer into a path where memories merge with dreams. Ranjit Das, a fellow painter, observes that the exhibition has made him ‘think deeply as Fokhrul’s media and technique are unique’ and believes ‘that one day he’ll be an established artist’. He has painted on paper with press ink, taking off the surface from time to time, occasionally putting on layers of paints, and piercing through the paper too at will.’ At times Fokhrul puts on paints and wipes them off with cloth to create textures, using mustard oil instead of linseed oil or turpentine and press ink. His compositions are modern and his presentations immaculate.
Fokhrul started as a ceramic painter but soon began to work with paper. He has given a unique texture to his work by pricking his canvas with pins before putting on the colours. He has created painting with the simple use of variations of black and gray. One wonders why there is this compulsive use of black in his work, since, overall, his work does not present any overriding sense of loss, or sadness or negation.
In his use of black, Fokhrul is almost revolutionary, and is obviously influenced in this respect by his stay in Japan. The materials that he uses are not expensive and so even the average art connoisseur can afford to buy his work.
Fokhrul often presents elongated glass walls with scattered trees in the forefront as if they are being seen at night. Jet-black surrounds the combination of rectangles, diagonals and squares in white. The accumulated geometrical images are delicately outlined with black and tinged with yellow, which gives a haunting sepia effect. Image-52 could be taken for a couple of elongated human forms surrounded by a halo of white with large specks of black. The images are framed by masses of gray and black.
Imagination runs riot in Image-38 and Image-37 which appear like transparent sheets of glass lined up with horizontal and diagonal lines to add to the mystery of the splashes of gold and scattering of black dust.
Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts, Dhaka December, 2003 Mohammad Fokhrul Islam’s creations don’t necessarily depict him fully. ‘For me painting or creating a work of art is the simplest way to express my feelings, emotions and love. When I try to prove myself as an artist and I fail to create an art form, it…