A lovely drizzly holiday day... just perfect for a drive out to the Institute of Fine Arts after a couple of drinks and a spicy hot South Indian lunch!
 

...and then to enjoy the artwork displayed at one of the 3 venues [Shilpakala Academy] of the 13th Asian Arts Biennial being held at Dhaka. The exhibition being of extra special attraction because works of several friends displayed here as well.

...have yet to visit the other 2 venues of the exhibition, the Osmani Memorial Auditorium and the National Museum.

Shall do, soon!

       Jhaal Muri

An Art & Photography Exhibition on Bangladesh Street Culture by

Rokeya ~ Kuhu  ~ Smita ~ Ujwala ~ Anil

His Excellency Mr. Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh,
will inaugurate the event.

8th November 2008 at 7:00 PM

 Bay's Galleria 5th Floor 57 Gulshan Avenue Dhaka Bangladesh

The exhibition will remain open 8th to 23rd November 2008

A few months ago artists friends came up with with an idea to do a fun project and exhibit our collective work. The idea was, to go out into the streets and do a series of photographs [market scenes, street-portraits...] and they would paint from these photo references. Not as copies, but interpretations in each of their vastly varied painting styles. It sounded great and a lot of fun. A few outings, and we had a large collection of images to select from. Three of the artists - Rokeya, Smita and Ujwala - featured in my SoFoBoMo 2008 book project and the fourth is Kuhu.

Things have come together, and the photo prints and the painting and artwork are now almost all ready to be exhibited - starting 8th November 2008 at Radius Centre's art gallery. We are all very excited about the outcome from this casual project, especially because it gives a slightly different viewpoint of «street life» of Dhaka. We've come back with an imagery of Dhaka that we hope everyone will find refreshing.

• About Jhaal Muri
• What is Jhaal Muri?
• About Phartists [Photographers & Artists]!

Artist friend Rokeya Sultana [she is a Professor at the Institute of Fine Arts as well] asked me to photograph the 7 day Printmaking Workshop proceedings at the Institute of Fine Arts Dhaka University  organized by The Bengal Foundation during 18th to 24th May 2008.  Visiting Professors Nirmalendu Das and Pinaki Barua of Vishwa Bharati headed the the Zinc-plate Etching and Lithography workshop.  Final prints from the artists who participated will be on display during a 2 day exhibition [«In Search Of Beautiful Impressions«] at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts on 3rd and 4th June 2008 - the inaugural ceremony will be held on 2nd June evening.  Photographing the artists at work was very interesting for me, and I sort of got a bit side-tracked and photographed more «faces» than I did of the actual processes! After going through the entire lot of photos, there were enough images to present a series of a dozen each for the Etching and Litho processes. Lucky! Some of these photos will also be on display at the exhibition as a sort of «introduction to printmaking» : 

I've never before displayed any photographs at an exhibition or to the public, so this is an exciting experience - though mixed with some apprehension as well! Previous related posts at my blog are here, here and here. A must-read is Ujwala's blog on her participation and experience.