The Old Dhaka is gradually losing its heritage at the increasing aggression of commercialisation and unplanned urbanisation for which the signature lifestyle of the locals are also changing drastically. This theme has been revealed artistically in artist Kazi Salahuddin Ahmed’s solo show at the Institute of Asian Creative in Gulshan.
An inhabitant of the locality Kazi Salahuddin has not sitirised the unplanned urbanisation, rather the romantic artist has presented the heritages, which are on the verge of extinction, in his solo titled City of Rhythm.
The artist has depicted the splendid beauty of the ancient buildings and the busy river port of the Buringanga River in his 38 landscape paintings done in different mediums including acrylic, paper cutting, mixed medium and pasting of saw dust on canvas.
‘I’ve portrayed the lifestyle of the inhabitants of the old town as an attempt to keep the heritage unchanged. We definitely need modernisation but not at the cost of heritage,’ said the artist on his 28th solo exhibition.
The 17 number painting of the City of Rhythm series depicts floating boats on Buriganga River viewed from the top, where the boats appear like the image of a sunflower. The brown boats, characterised with saw dust and coloured with acrylic, are set on the blue, vivid river water on canvas.
Artwork number 40 of the series is a bird view of the old Dhaka town that illustrates the densely situated houses on the river bank. In this painting, Ahmed has used quite an off track medium of colourful bamboo mats to depict the green playgrounds and streets that look as thin as lines from above.
In artwork titled Sheer Chaos, the artist has used newspaper cuttings glued on canvas. The newspaper cuts reveal different news about the problems of old town. Ahmed also used strokes of acrylic paints on the artwork to give it a colourful façade.
‘The purpose of the artwork is to demonstrate the daily problems like traffic jam, water logging and other problems that the inhabitants of the old parts of the city have to endure regularly. I have used newspaper cuts as newspapers generally do the sacred duty of informing the people about the crises and irregularities,’ Kazi Salahuddin told New Age.
The artist Kazi Salahuddin Ahmed won awards at different international competitions including the Grand Prize at the 15th Asian Art Biennale in 2012, the Honourable Mention Award at the 13th Asian Art Biennale in 2008.
He also won an award participating in the miniature art competition in the US.
Inaugurated on December 06, the current show will remain open for everybody from 12:00 to 8:00pm everyday till December 15.
-With New Age input
