From 4 March to 17 March, a group art exhibition featuring some of the leading names of our fine arts arena was held at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.

Organised by Samatat Art Camp, the exhibition featured 100 artworks by 40 painters including Qayyum Chowdhury, Shahabuddin Ahmed, Monirul Islam, Hashem Khan, Abu Taher, Samarjit Roy Choudhury, Dhiraj Choudhury, Biren Shome, Jamal Ahmed, Alokesh Ghosh. Besides, the artworks by some of the new faculty members of the Dhaka University’s Fine Arts Department were also showcased at the exhibition. Looking at the paintings it can safely be said that the exhibition indeed portrayed a true amalgamation of young and veteran artists of Bangladesh. As the name of the exhibition suggests, most of the paintings were the portrait of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, our great liberation war and landscape of rural Bangla.

‘Samatat’ has so far organised five art camps and the exhibition featured selected artworks from those art camps. Renowned photojournalist and writer M A Taher at his own initiative established ‘Samatat’ at the picturesque Sonargaon in Narayangonj. While talking to this writer, Taher said, ‘The name ‘Samatat’ is given by late Qayyum Chowdhury and the logo is also designed by him. It is indeed saddening that the master painter is no more with us. But I believe he must be watching us from a different space and feeling proud by the fact that ‘Samatat’ has organised such an exhibition.’

Taher wishes to organise more art camps by ‘Samatat’ in the coming days in order to help enriching the fine arts sector of the country.