Exhibition of works and launch of monograph at Lalit Kala Akademi, National Academy of Art, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi, 6th -26th June 2022

This knee-buckling collection of more than forty years of Rokeya Sultana’s art, which is most known for dealing with themes of women, sexuality, and feminism, should be it if you only have time to visit one outstanding gallery show this time. 

The Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) is showcasing the works of noted Bangladeshi artist Rokeya Sultana, In Delhi and Kolata, to commemorate 50 years of India-Bangladesh friendship and the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence. However, this exhibition was scheduled to open on October 23rd of last year, but due to communal violence during Durga Puja in Bangladesh against the country’s Hindu minority, the Indian government chose to postpone it. Despite the fact that Sultana had previously been shown in India, the news of the exhibition’s cancellation must have demoralised both her and the art enthusiasts. However, this exhibition was on display from 6 to 26 June 2022 at the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi, and it will be replicated in Kolkata in 2022 from July 7 to July 20 and in Dhaka by Bangladesh Foundation, in 2022. Bengal Foundation has launched a monograph in commemoration of this historic show, which was created in close collaboration with the Rukeya and there were 120 to 130 works of her artwork on display. 

Through her work, she represents the two nations’ common cultural traditions. She appears to be interested in sensuality and feminism. Her depictions of suffering, loss, gender, and natural environs and landscapes are as many universal reflections of our time as they are windows into a very intimate world. Rokeya Sultana’s four-decade-long artistic career is celebrated through a selection of works from her most well-known figural series, “Madonna” and “Relations,” as well as her abstract interpretation of the Bangladeshi landscape and natural world in the “Earth Water Air sequence” and the print series “Fata Morgana.” 

Sultana portrays the common woman navigating the world in the ‘Madonna’ series (early – mid-nineties), which is named after the American music queen; highlighting the complexities of motherhood and the mother’s battle in the difficult circumstances of her cosmopolitan lifestyle. She’s been on a journey for silence, profundity, and poetry in recent years. Her use of flowing and translucent colours, planned…  

To read more, subscribe to our magazine.