Joygopal Tarafder. who had his solo drawing exhibition at the Ooe the Institute, had the manners of a country bumpkin. He apparently had few patrons or friends. But his display had much more substance than many of the sophisticated work that one sees in the City.

Joygopal was not out to please by presenting colourful scenes or delightful portrayals. He did not 'go in for over-complicated abstracts. He did not care to experiment or play around with colours, textures or the media. He was a student of sculpture but he had a drawing display because that was wliat he could afford.

"I may have been able to make ' pieces out of terracotta for an exhibit but they would have been expensive to transport, and people do not pause to appreciate them. Firing clay is also another money involving process where you need an expensive oven. Working on stone and wood is again very dear," explained Joygopal as to why he resorted to a display of drawings.

Many of the pieces used one colour only and some were the col- J lections of ■ handfuls of ■ sketches done ■ with a ball ■ point pen. De- ' spite the frugal ways of the artist the hardboard. paper and celluloid cost him Tk 7000.

Joygopal. who professed to enjoy his drawing, certainly went Into a big way into details of drawing, specially the human anatomy .This appeared somewhat unusual today when artists spend so little time sketching or drawing and leave it to clever play of colours and textures to win the approval of their onlookers.

Joygopal was all set to point out to his viewers the suffering of the masses and the socioeconomic problems of the middle class. While he spent a lot of time and energy to delineate scenes from the recent cyclone and the past floods, he went out of his way to show that even without these calamities, life for the common people in Bangladesh was tedious and almost insufferable.

in "Flood Victim-r had an emaciated, un-derclad and hungry couple sitting with an empty bowl and glass. The bodies were shown as if made of terra-cotta. Lines, spots, dots and designs covered the anatomy.

A man was depicted as grabbing a red bowl which was empty in "Flood Victim-2". The artist had once again played with the texture while dealing with the delineation of the body of the starved man. "Flood Victim -3" was similarly an image of pain and distress. The broken twisted limbs stood for everything that was destroyed and washed away. But surmounting all was the new moon and the sprig of leaves symbolising hope.

A begging woman was presented in "She the Deprived”. The woman looked more like a collection of twisted and deformed tubes although her face and hand with the begging bowl were clear. Blue, black, brown and vermilion were used and it did not appear as monotonous as some of the other creations where the drawings had a single colour like muted brown.

The images of the flood were brought Into "Tormented Sentiment'. Army medals were

shown to symbolise power. A bowl of coins represented foreign aid. Army rule was shown as something that tied down the citizen with thick cruel ropes. The other faces in the drawing showed, similarly. various people in, the grips of pain, torment and agony.

Symbols were utilised in "Templed Moment-2" as well as in most other drawings. The limbs of mankind were shown as bolts of lightning that one saw in a cyclone or a hurricane. In between the tortured limbs were the faces of a tired man and a skull to show the ultimate stage in humans. The artists message was that

man's life was like a wild, unabated storm.

"Dream and Love" again showed a very negative image of life. A man has his hopes and dreams but his wishes were not fulfilled in average everyday life. The relieving factor of the theme was that despite broken dreams man’s love persists. Endless cubes were filled with sections of human anatomy.

"Modern Life Style-2" had drawings of floating. drab "pajama” and "punJabi" In which the clothes symbolised the boring, unrelieved existence of every man. Life has little pleasures or excitement, was the message of the artist.

Just as the cyclone had destroyed the trees and plants so the limbs of mankind in "Man and Men-10" were shown as twisted roots, branches and twigs. The artist's "Man and Men-6" reminded you of the massive creations of Henry Moore. Once again the drawings represented the pain of the everyday man.

There was nothing trivial or frivolous about Joy go pal's work. He was dead earnest. He did not care who liked his work and who did not He was bent on passing on the massage of the suffering of mankind and this he did fairly well. He was. also, apparently a hard worker. With adequate backing, guidance and further training he could do more promising work In the future.