Letting nature speak

Rokeya Sultana
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In my family, culture was something that we breathed. During my childhood, I had watched my two elder sisters trying their hands in drawing. They drew their inspiration from the works of Abanidranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose. In Rwalpindi, where we spent our childhood, we were in touch with Sayed Jahangir. In short, the ambience was of an artistic one, and as child I received all the stimulations one needs.
We moved to Dhaka after I had passed out from school. It was at this time, when was poised to go for higher studies, that I heeded what many of my relations used to say at family gatherings. They were always emphatic about one thing: "Since you have a knack for art, why don't you seek admission in Dhaka Art College."
However, for a girl of a middle class family studying art was an unconventional route to take. The first two years at college were nightmarish. Works kept me outdoor till evening. I got admission in 1975 and as outdoor studies made me return home past evening, my parents were worried. They were not at all happy about the situation. For a Muslim girl it was customary to be at home before sunset. It was my good grades and the awards which finally pacified my parents. On top of that, the concern over security was not an issue then. Back in the 1970s Dhaka was a much safer city for any young woman.
What kept my drive alive is the pleasure I got out of it all. I had to face many obstacles. The thought that the boys of our class used to spend the whole night at Kamalapur railway station studying passengers while I could not even stay outdoor till dark was emotionally draining. But the intense pleasure I got out of creating art helped me keep my nose above the water.
During study, I had this opportunity to be under the aegis of Shahid Kabir, then a popular teacher at the college. He inspired me to join the newly established Department of Print Making. As a student, I took his suggestion to heart and the reward was unbelievably great. I had this opportunity to work under direct supervision of two major artists of Bangladesh. One is Shafiuddin Ahmed and the other Mohammad Kibria.
In different phases of my life I have been influenced by different artists. Having an eclectic taste, I have been inspired by artists of disparate spirit and approach. With Marc Chagal and Van Gogh as my all time favourite, there are other strings of artists who with there imagery seemed to incite my emotion. However, among my sources of inspirations nature is a mainstay. Even to this day, whenever an opportunity to be in proximity with nature comes, I just try and grab it. It is always invigorating to be in alliance with nature, even if it is for a few days. From each soujourn in Chittagong or the Sundarbans I always come back reinvigorated and even enriched. It changes my approach towards life and art.
In the early ears as an artist I have explored women as a subject but never in the narrow sense of feminism. I consider women to be having an immense potential. To me women is a symbol of fertility, it is the primordial appeal that I find interesting.
In the early 1990s, I have depicted woman in my "madonna" etching series. A child was always her companion. I stopped doing that long ago. In my recent paintings, two women are often depicted having an ambiguous relationship. They are simply beside one another, as it is my intention to exude a strong energy that recalls primordial vigour I try and keep the meaning open ended. However, if I were hard-pressed to scour my mind as to what they represent, I would say that now that my own child is a woman, I draw on the bond that we have between us. It certainly happens on a subconscious level. This is the reason why I never explain my paintings. They come from a reservoir the depth of which even I do not know. I feel that I was destined to become an artist. I serve a purpose in God's grand design. Spontaneity is my guide; spontaneity makes me depict the human bodies as they appear in my work --- free and fluid.

Relation by Rokeya Sultana

Few days back, while I was talking to my students, I said that it was a strong grounding in drawing that always makes me feel confident in defying academic rules. If I had felt that I did not know how to draw realistic pictures, I would not have ventured out this far, severing all ties with realism. But, in a sense, it is reality that I deal in. I only wring out the nectar of it. I believe it is all about how one looks at nature. As for me, I still marvel at nature. The power of observation developed in me at a very early age. I used to wander about alone as a child, and I always had the eye for little details like small flowers, changing cloud formations. Solitary musing is one thing that made me watch things otherwise one would have missed.
Later, it was Mohammad Kibria taught me how to look at things with a disinterested eye. Not that I recognised it out right and picked it up as if it was something to be imitated. It was when I went to Santiniketan in 1982 that I was overwhelmed with the calm, serene landscape, and it made understand beauty from an angle which is nirmoho in Bangla, disinterested in English. The two dimensionality of surface also has its antecedent to Kibria's transcendental pictures.
I try to make my image transcend the reality. Though nature is my springboard, I never draw while looking at it. Even with human figures I have never done a work by looking at a sitter. I first absorb and then interiorise the essence of reality that I a am a part of and then stand vis-a-vis my blank canvases. It is from this point that things start to take shape on my canvases.
The affinity that I feel with monsoon, my favourite season, finds its voice in my tempera on papers. My preoccupation with tempera began 12 years back. I started using it as if I was applying watercolour, taking advantage of the fluidity to bring out the atmospheric side of the medium. Many artists have wondered about the spontaneity of my watercolour wash-like formations in my pieces as well as my vivid palette. At Shantiniketan we were introduced to Zen Buddism and Taoism, we were exposed to Chinese scroll paintings. The mystic interpretation of life in Chinese texts left an impression. I began to feel that my bond with nature was becoming stronger and the spiritual affinity began to show its signs in my works. I was extremely lucky that in Shantiniketan there were teachers like Lalu Prasad Shau, Somnath Hore and Sanat Kaur as teachers. They stoked my imagination.
For me art is an indirect comment and the free flow of consciousness that bring it into existence is only possible in solitude.