The New Nation - Internet Edition

WP Reporter

"Ivy Zaman's promotion to the international sculpture scene has been part chance, part her creative urge and part her commitment. She was inspired to venture into the competitive international sculptural field when she accompanied her husband sculptor Hamiduzzaman to Korea where he executed some commissioned works. Ivy later submitted a model of her own work for a highly competitive second Korean International Sculpture Symposium. Her six-feet high-seated Buddha in granite now adorns Youngwool Park, since 2003, with works of other distinguished artists of the world. It is a rare honour for any Bangladeshi artist. Ivy was offered visiting fellowship by the Koreans again in 2005," said urban expert and Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Prof Nazrul Islam at the solo sculpture exhibition of Ivy Zaman at Shilpangan Gallery in the capital. Some 77 art works of Ivy took place in the exhibition.

Ivy's current solo exhibition in various mediums and themes also brought in her water-colour work on portraits of people and animals, which she often uses as preliminary models for her sculpture work. Not only has she presented abstract but also semi-abstract images, sometimes also including the nature around her in the past.

Ivy with her sculpture in stone, wood, cement, bronze and aluminium has certainly earned repute for herself at home and overseas. Having studied in Shantiniketan, and inspired by her sculptor husband, Hamiduzzaman Khan, she has followed the footsteps of Novera Ahmed and Shamim Shikdar, causing a stir in the fine arts field.

Presently Ivy brings in portraits such as that of the seated Buddha and the faces of agony of the everyday persons that she sees in the streets. At times she exaggerates and elongates and sometimes she diminishes the items in her portraits, cancelling an eye here and adding an extra lip there. These small bronze pieces were excellent for the walls of the bourgeois home. The portraits in watercolour would also embellish many a niche and corner or even as a main display in rooms of the avid collector.

The seated Buddha was an excellent piece of sculpture, done in stainless steel, with simplified angles and lines. This was reminiscent of her piece in Korea in a sculpture park, where 20 young granite workers had assisted her.

When Ivy works on massive pieces she often does this with the help of metal artisans as in Tejgaon metal works, and even in Dholaikhal in Old Dhaka, where she hires her assistants.

She said, "It's not possible for me to do these sculpture pieces alone. The design is hers but she requires the team-work of the young assistants."

She also has a studio in Badda, which she shares with her husband, sculptor Hamiduzzaman Khan.

Her other portraiture of a woman in steel includes abstract images of eyes and lips, touched up with hints of colours in places. This too was innovative and daring. Her enormous clogs (khoroms) were inspired by everyday living, and presented her specialty in wood.

Her paintings, meanwhile, were done both at home and in her studio. Her metal works remain dear to her heart.

Ivy goes basically for semi abstract forms but also enjoys producing pure abstracts. In the semi abstract form, she has done both human figures and birds and animals. Plants are also her favourite. Her series of works on the 'Germination' (Ankoor) in stone is interesting. The inspiration for the series came from her childhood memories of plant roots. Ivy comes from Bogra where evolved the earliest urban civilization of Bengal more than two millennium ago. Close to Bogra and along the Karotoa was Mahasthangarh, the ancient Buddhist centre of learning in the region. The instances of antiquity seem strong in the memory of Ivy as manifest in several of her small bronze pieces, with rough rusty texture.

She strives for expression both in miniature pieces as well as in almost monumental works, like some painted abstract steel compositions, the 'Seated Buddha' and 'Begum Rokeya,' a life figure.

In her semi-abstract delineations of nature she had earlier brought in the trees and bushes of the countryside around her in Bogra and of the Santals who lived close to Shantiniketan, where she had her further studies. Seeds, pods, corrugated rooftops, doors and windows were included in these items and they were lapped up by architects and other private home decorators. Elegant and stylised, these items have borne a special delicate feminine angle. Ivy's huge metal statue of Begum Rokeya is also something to marvel at and this is placed in Bogra too the home of the subject.

It is indeed a wonder that a sculptured human figure of a distinguished woman, (and not in veil or even an artificial scarf around her), stands in the open green of the Begum Rokeya complex in Pairaband in Rangpur, Rokeya place of birth. Ivy has firmly established her place at the foot of Begum Rokeya. Both are rebels in their own right. Ivy is built of strong elements. She also enjoys outdoor watercolour painting, drawing in pencil or charcoal. These are good and necessary breaks for a sculptor. Some of her very recent large abstract and semi abstract forms in aluminium indicate such a direction.

The sculpture exhibition was concluded on February 4.