Najma's Nostalgia

Humid Escape, acrylic on canvas.

Najma Akhter whose solo began on March 1 at the Bengal Gallery dwells mostly on her childhood memories. The display is going to last for 10 days. She presents a lot of abstract images, in which dark colours dominate. The forms and colours are inspired by abstract painters like Mohammed Kibria and Monirul Islam.
Najma says that although one leaves one's well-known area, one does not forget childhood memories. They are stored in the memory bank, some clear and some not. "Just as when we read a piece of fiction, we contemplate on a character, and some of this is known and some unknown," she says.

The unknown remains abstract fragments rather than real. The murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib is also depicted; the background is black while blood is trickling down. It is symbolic and was done in 2011, when she was asked to paint on the theme of Bangabandhu.
We then see “An abandoned house” where the artist depicts a home of her childhood. As her mother was not well, and her father had a job, which took home from one place to another, she was left to be brought up by her uncle and aunt. Obviously she could not get the parental attention that she needed and wanted, as her parents were away. The inside is dark, says Najma. There are many broken bits of stones. Some of the cement has been exposed. The walls remain covered with lichen, through the rain over the years.
Coming to “In and out”, the artist says that she has portrayed the position of women in our male-dominated society of in the Subcontinent. As women are expected to remain indoors and not have much to with socio-political life around them, she has depicted women's existence as ones living in a dark world of their own—in their own lonely ivory towers—putting it symbolically, the rectangle that contains them is dark, while space around them is whitish. Women are not easily allowed to express their minds or be allowed to easily participate in the world outside, says the artist. She has to accept everything, without questioning the male dominated world. Whatever hues the picture demands, she applies those, she says. This painting, in acrylic, appears like a page in a diary or calendar. There are dots outside and very dark in the inside in this portrayal of a woman's place in our society.   

Reminder 2, acrylic on paper.