“And if their interest wandered, I would tell them, in the end, a love story, about a king called Shantanu and how, on the banks of the great river, he spotted a woman of dazzling beauty. This was of course, none other than the Ganga herself, but the king had no knowledge of this. On the banks of rivers even the most temperate of men lose their heads. King Shantanu fell in love, wholly, madly; he promised the river goddess that he would grant her whatever she wanted, if she chose even to drown her own children he would not stand in her way”
Love flows deep in rivers. With more than 700 rivers and tributaries flowing through the 55,598 square miles of Bangladesh, it is justly called a riverine country. Much of the men’s lives, their joys and sorrows happen around the rivers. The vast waterways flow ceaselessly shaping thousands of lives around them. The sheer number of colors that float on these river channels is amazing. This portfolio is an attempt to recreate those hues and their alterations with the changing backdrops of sun, rain, wind and storm. Sometimes the subject shifted from the waters towards the land.
I have used experimental pigments in most of these paintings, namely, emulsion color. This is an industrial pigment that is used mainly for coloring walls. That makes it cheap, easily available and very long lasting. It can be used both as water color (commolex background) and oil paint (only it does not require linseed or turpentine). In the others, I used poster paint and a black gel pen for borders and highlights.
