The print, incidentally, is not done with a machine but by adding her own muscle power--which is quite a feat on its own. The result has a delicate poised impact, which speaks a lot against the hang-ups of society. Farida, is not out to preach but to present a subtle display, which will charm one to try to comprehend the subjects, under the layers of pastel and darker shades. Soft-spoken but firm and decisive, Farida drives home her message with a positive thrust.

The exhibition, entitled Matter Realism, contains gripping creations, which have been done partly in Shantiniketan and in her Dhaka studio. Farida says that her departure to abstraction is a gradual and automatic process in her quest for simplification and presentation of the complexity of society. Her ultimate goal is to stir the viewers' minds. She does not always bring in her environment but accidentally this does creep into some of work. Memories and aspirations also sometimes enter her mixed media creations.

At Shantinketan she was influenced by figurative work which surrounded her in India but Farida insists that her work is a departure from that, in the sense that her mixed media compositions are non-figurative. Surrounded by beauteous untouched nature in her student days, she is still in the setting of flora. However, she finds that flowers and trees are in a more confined setting here in Dhaka. She also has the added task of home-making. Also, people here tend to be more preoccupied with political, social and economic matters of grave importance, Farida says. In her own studio at Shantiniketan she was more at liberty to create ad lib, she says.

Farida concentrates on her work, as she goes along, the flow and speed of her work being somewhat intermittent with breaks for necessary chores or even hobbies. Some of her work is pre-planned while others are not. Some of the results, she says, are even accidental. In Space and Emptiness, mixed media on canvas, there are oval and rectangle darkly outlined forms floating in space. Below are cascading swivels of white, with raised forms, like in the rest of the composition. The impact is both soothing and imaginative, and creates the element of space, which is badly lacking in our environment in Dhaka. The Eternal String Theory, mixed media on canvas, presents twigs on a backdrop of bight browns and gold. This is a mockery of the theory of the force of gravity in physics.

Provocative and iconoclastic, each piece in the exhibition boggles the mind and yet goads one to look around Zainul Gallery space more than once. The impact of the display is undoubtedly a superb one.