FARZANA RAHMAN BOBBY: Revealing ‘The Soul of the Soil’

Photo: Courtesy

Promising artist Farzana Rahman Bobby is singularly devoted to art. As an ardent participant of creation, she closely observes the minute beauty and diversity of nature through the keen aesthetic lens of her mind. The shades of patience, discipline and her emotions are noticeable in her artworks that evoke the intensity of poetry, and is prominent with regard to both subjects and techniques.

Bobby’s first solo print exhibition titled The Soul  of the Soil opens today at the contemporary art gallery Shilpangan, Dhanmondi at 6 pm. Internationally famous artist Monirul Islam will inaugurate the show. Artist and critic Javed Jalil will be present as special guest, while renowned artist and Dean of the Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka, Professor Nisar Hossain will preside over the opening ceremony.

Soil intensely holds the plants and gives refuge to all the living creatures on earth. It gives birth to new souls inspiring the coexistence of humans, animals and nature into a balanced ecosystem. It plays the role of a mother, while Bobby, in her artistic pursuit, reveals the soul of the soil in diverse ways depicting roots, barks, leaves, trunks, foliage, lichen, rock, water, blossoms, birds and various aesthetic elements of nature, in many of her artworks.

According to Javed Jalil, roots of a tree are a complex rendering of pattern, manifested into a mystical twist. As roots hold the tree to the soil, it also plays the role of ‘origin’ or a ‘source’. For Bobby, roots resemble our own starting point and connote a connection to our spirit. The print titled Roots of a Tree Trunk is an elusive print, which delves into white illuminative light of the back ground and validating forms of ones entanglement with spirit and matter.

In Under the Water, she creates a metaphoric association of thoughts. Things can totally be different from how they appear to be. The thought of fabrication, camouflaged tendencies are evident in most of the things, but here she tries to speak of the hidden beauty that is sacred and secret. 

The artist has so far participated in a number of workshops, group exhibitions and international art biennales including the 16th, 17th and the 18th Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh; several editions of national art exhibitions; 3rd International Biennale of Miniprint, Argentina; International Miniprint Exhibition, Rome, Italy; Dhaka-Brisbane Print Exchange Programme; Goa Affordable Art Festival, Goa, India and the 5th Tone International Miniature Art Biennale, Bangladesh. The exhibition, opening from 3 pm to 8 pm daily, will run until July 18.