Harmony in Black and White

Return to Eden 4, relief print, 15x28cm, 2013.

The monochrome-coloured print exhibition “Return to Eden” or “Mon Phirey Chol” at the Alliance Française Gallery reiterates the need for Man to come out of his complex, high-tech life. When Nasima Khan Queenie was in the first year at college, she could contact many of her friends through just the telephone. Today everything is complicated, polluted and there is cramming of population with the influx from the countryside to look for jobs, the artist says. These are the underlying emotions that dominate her works at this show.
Of course there are good aspects to our modern existence, she says, via the e-mail and Facebook we get the news from overseas very quickly.
There is mechanical development but mentally we seem to be rushing, getting nowhere, says the artist. Nowadays, even before going to a friend's house, one must phone, and find out if that person is free to see guests. Life is no more natural and easy, she says. The uncomplicated mentality of before is there no more. As a teenager, she found the socio-economic and political life easy to get by.
 

She went for a story-telling and education conference at Madison in the US. She presented “Zulekha, Badshar Meye”, which had, as the theme, the power of nature and our need to be with it to lead a harmonious and contented life. It was derived from a storybook in Bangla. The fairy was symbolic—when she was told to go away, no flower or leaf or even butterfly or bird flourished, according to the story.
Queenie did her BFA in Oriental Art from the Institute of Fine Arts, Dhaka University. She went to New York and did “The Basic Drawing for the Media” for a year under John Foot, who had worked for the Vogue Magazine. She did a show at Long Island. Later, she did her Masters in 2004 at the University of Development Alternative. She also taught at the Radiant International School, Dhanmandi as an art teacher, in between. The exhibition of prints at Alliance is her 5th solo.
In one of her works, the men and women are dancing, resting in the riverbanks and playing the Bangla Dhol. The image is that of repose and contentment. “Return to Eden-4” has leaves in between and dots on the trees. The leaves intertwine. In “Return to Eden 1” there are men with two women sitting down. There is a harmony of small and large leaves.
Mainuddin Khalid, one of the chief guest speakers, says, "There is a harmonised atmosphere. The botanical elements have all a balance and rhythm within them. The media, the texture has been used in a manner that the subject is laudable. There is optimism in the work. The atmosphere is a dreamy one. Nature thus provides a therapy of peace. One also finds intimate space.”
The exhibition ends on December 27.

Return to Eden 21, relief print, 30x40cm, 2013.