Page 288 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

WOMEN ARTISTS 285

pictorial naturalism is very rare in these fig. 7.22 (top) Nasreen
times. Still life, plant life, the corner of Begum, Woman with
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a room, pebbles etc. have made their Cactus, acrylic, 2006
place in Dipa’s work.
Nasreen Begum (1956- ) practices fig. 7.23 (bottom)
painting in the oriental method. She Rowshan Haq Dipa,
uses the wash technique in watercolors Fare Forward, oil on
canvas, 1946
with great skill. The world of women
and women themselves remain
constant as the theme of her work. The
method and media she employs direct
her to look at nature in minute details.
Women and nature, the unequal
position of women in life is presented
in delicate and faultless beauty. Rough
reality is a sugar-coated pill in her
work (fig. 7.22).
Rokeya Sultana (1958- ) showed
increased activity from the nineties.
Her work became distinguished by the depiction of her self-realization and her lived
experience. She represented her daily struggle in the
known surroundings of her city (pl. 3.7). Her images are
similar to child art. Syed Manzoorul Islam specifies, ‘Her
works . . . draw strength from primitive sensibility or from
a child’s unrestricted vision.’ She works in prints and
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other media. Rhythmic lines and figurative imagery lends
distinction to her work. Woman’s existence, experience
and the sensory world from a woman’s perception are the
materials that make up her work.
Akhtar Jahan Ivy (1958- ) is one among a few women
sculptors. She grows more productive from the nineties.
Childhood memories, the environment and nature have
found a place in her work. She works in cement, bronze,
sheet metal, wood, terracotta etc. media (pl. 2.20). A simple
abstraction of elements and figures from her known world
distinguished her work. 47
Dilara Begum Jolly (1960- ) has continued to represent
social reality directly in her work. She has given form to
social contradiction, oppression, inequalities and injustice
in pictorial language. Among her chosen themes,
discrimination against women and her feministic viewpoint