Understanding Biren 

During the five decades of his career, artist Biren Shome has worked on numerous themes while manipulating various mediums to his artistic advantage.

 Due to this reason, it was naturally difficult to grasp the entire range of his paintings.

   His seven solo exhibitions, including the last one at Shilpangan, have featured all the varieties his paintings can offer. However, there has been a dearth of a full-fledged publication containing a complete appraisal of his artworks.

   The recent book, titled ‘Biren Shome: His Tireless Odyssey’, is a commendable step in filling up this gap. The book contains a rich collection of critical appreciations of most of his major works and exhibitions.

   Published by Chandrabati Academy and edited by Matlub Ali, the book offers a plethora of write-ups. It also illustrates a good number of his major works, since the 1970s, in different mediums including watercolour, oil, acrylic, sketches, drawings, etchings and studies.

   A total of 29 Bangla write-ups have been put together with eight English ones by the prominent art critics of the country. The Bangla write-ups were written by major artists like Rashid Chowdhury and Qayyum Chowdhury, poets Syed Ali Ahsan, Shamsur Rahman, Rabiul Hossain and Habibullah Siraji, art critics Shafi Ahmed, Mainuddin Khaled, Matlub Ali, Shihab Sarkar and Hasan Sayeed.

   The Bangla section also contains two important pieces by the artist himself. One of this is a short memoir of the turbulent months of 1971 while the other documents the art movement that had been generated during the country’s liberation war.

   The eight English write-ups demonstrate the most theoretically enthused appreciations of Shome’s works, including write-ups by eminent critics like Mohammad Sirajul Islam, Syed Manzoorul Islam, Shafi Ahmed, Mainuddin Khaled, Javed Jalil and Fayza Haq.

   Among the Bengali writers, Rashid Chowdhury, Syed Ali Ahsan, Shamsur Rahman, Habibullah Siraji, Rezwan Siddiqui, Mamun Kaiser and Hasan Sayeed, in their appraisal, present a short analysis of the artist’s works, focusing mainly on his preoccupation with nature done in watercolour.

   Shafi Ahmed, Matlub Ali, Mainuddin Khaled and Anirudhho Kahalid’s articles stand out as they try to present a complete analysis of the artist’s painting career.

   Shafi Ahmed’s three pieces attribute a detailed analysis of the artist’s career. The first one, titled ‘Biren Shomer Sajal Barnali’ pays tribute to the artist’s colourful paintings done in watercolours. Beginning with the reference to his solo watercolour exhibition held at Galery Chitrak in 1993, he explores the bright strokes of Shome in his nature-paintings. His second write-up is on Shome’s illustrious career in book-illustrations while the third, titled ‘Biren Shomer Bitoklanti Jatra’, covers all the different forms Shome has taken on in his works including the realistic, abstract, semi-abstract and romantic.

   Five of Matlub Ali’s pieces explore how Shome combines green, yellow, red and black in portraying nature and human figures, especially women, in his realistic and semi-abstract renditions. In so doing, he creates a sense of joy and interrelation between man and nature, according to Ali.

   Anirudhho Kahalid and Mamun Kaiser highlight the fact that Shome has not confined himself to abstraction in choosing his forms, rather he has always shown a predilection over the realistic and romantic forms with concrete figures moulded in to different shapes.

   Mainuddin Khaled has explored the artist’s distinct use of watercolour in creating a personal style to uphold folk motifs in the painting of Bangladesh.

   Rabiul Hossain, Mahmud Al-Jaman, Dilip Malakar, Syed Mahbub Alam and Ruhul Amin Bazlu have written on the solo exhibitions held in different art galleries during different periods of the artist’s career.

   Among the English write-ups, Sirajul Islam discusses the artist's switch in forms, from the earlier abstract strain to the figurative, claiming that the romantic strain is the strongest in the artist.

   Like his third Bangla write-up in the collection, Shafi Ahmed mainly dwells on the artistic manipulation of the artist’s abstract form in his English essay. Although abstracted with a juxtaposition of red, yellow and black, Ahmed claims that his abstractions encapsulate the fundamental contradictions of life with hope being at the forefront.

   ‘Biren is one of those artists, who have firm conviction for dismantling themselves from the canons of colonial ideals,’ said Mainuddin Khaled in his English essay. Elaborating on this, he went on to say that Shome has stuck to our traditional art forms.

   Syed Manzoorul Islam’s piece, titled ‘A Romantic-Realist’s View of the World’ deserves a special mention as it touches all the major trends in Shome’s works. ‘Biren Shome’s romanticism expresses itself in his adoration of nature, and in the strong optimism that he is able to transmit to his viewers,’ he said decisively while terming the artist a ‘realist-romantic’. ‘Biren’s themes seize upon the possibilities that life offers to struggling humanity, and the potentials of progress each individual carries… Among his favourite symbols are horses, push-carts and wheels, representing speed, struggle and progress,’ he added.

   Referring to the artist’s left-leaning political background, Syed Islam concluded that his exposure to leftist ideas had solidified his commitment to the cause of the people.

   In conclusion, one is apt to say that such a voluminous collection will go a long way into understanding Shome’s work.

by Rifat Munim                                                                  New age extra