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From figurative relief work to bamboo sculpture

Saidul Haque Juise, of Air Bash, British Council, traces the roots of his success

FAYZA HAQ
TALKING about his career, beginning from the point when he had held his exhibition at La Galerie, Banani, Saidul Haque Juise said, 'Mustafa Manwar, who was then the Director of Performing Arts Academy, guided me with puppet-making, which helped me reach that point of success. When I was a 2nd year student of Art College, now known as Fine Arts Institute, Du,
along with Chandra Shekhar Day, Ra Kajol, Shomir Datt, Wakilul Rahman, uttam Day and Habibur Rahman, we sat and learnt the art of puppet-making. This was in 1978. We worked in Mustafa Manwar's studio, assisting him; at that time we learnt only about ' glove puppets'. '
The work ensued for a fairly long period, and in the interim period, the artists also learnt about set-designing or any other requisite art work for TV or any festival -- no matter what the venue or time. The group would keep the foreign viewers in mind while working with various international programmes, at the Shishu Academy, with decoration and stage props. They did the puppetmaking, decoration and designing as and when required. ' We got the courage for such large-scale work as 'Air-Bash' through the British Council; we don't copy, but within the frame work of even a short period we can handle a big work without temerity. Mustafa Manwar is indeed a great teacher.'
Asked to name his teachers at the Art College who guided and inspired him, Juise says they included Shahid Kabir, the late Mahboobul Amin and Mahmudul Haque. "In Shahid Kabir, in particular," Juise said, "we found our basis of inspiration: he let us experiment. He didn't keep us at an arm's distance, and is still our close friend whenever he comes to Bangladesh from Spain. With Mustafa Manwar we learnt about puppets and muppets (where there is a person within the puppet) and paper-folding. I would go to my room at the Art students' hostel behind New Market and continue to practice what I had learnt with my gurus. Paper folding was not only my hobby but my passion; I began with my mask work before the necessary work involved in various Pahela Baisakh occasions during my student days. Earlier I had done masks for the theatre for the play Othello (organised by the British Council, Nagorik and Theatre).
'Later, while still a student, I took my inspiration from local masks, which I'd gathered wherever I went within Bangladesh. This was during 19781979. The first mask I'd made was that of a tiger; next I tried various other masks necessary for the Pahela Baisakh festivals. The tiger obviously symbolised Bangladesh. I had a large exhibit of my paper-folding at the Bangla Academy Boi Mela, in 1985; this dealt with the torture and killing of university students at that time, and was aimed against the police action in 1983 within the Du premises; this took an anti-government stance. The stall where my work was presented there, was 15 ft by 7 ft. and was at an arranged by Tarek Masud (of Matir Moina fame), who was then a film enthusiast, and who had cheered me on with my attempt. This paper-folding work could, today, be labelled as figurative relief work.'
As a freelance artist, Juise had his mask exhibition at La Gallerie in 1993. In this were 100 variations of 15 basic designs. Dwelling on the materials he had used, Juise explained that he had used paper-folding, basically, and had been influenced by local folk masks, dolls, animals on wheels, and shora (made with clay and wood). Next, with his imagination, Juise chose his colours, according to his taste and his selected forms, and surely reflected well the cultural roots
of Bangladesh. Later, he received orders for his types of masks, seen at the La Gallerie, Banani both by overseas and local art enthusiasts.
Elaborating on the display of masks in his drawing-room, Juise said that this was a much later development: the change that came about was not something forced, but something that came from within. Juise said that he wanted to create different forms, according to his own style and imagination. "I wanted simplicity of forms and variety of shapes such as within square or oval frames. I wanted change in lengths too; thus one gets the elongation and various basic geometrical shapes couching the masks. I didn't want to add colours because I felt that they were unnecessary; I wanted more of the sculpted effect with economy of tints. The cement that has been used in them have seen before in my work which you have seen at The National Museum earlier, at a group exhibition; I got the basic inspiration for my materials from sandpaper as I found its texture beautiful. Having used the sand, I added colours with Indian fabric tube paints. Thus I added the relief and embossed effect on the masks that you see, without using the strokes of paint brush which will not apply there. These works were done in 1994." Dwelling on whether he can make the paints himself, being confined to Bangladesh in the interim period, Juise continued, "I make black, gold and silver colours as the basic ingredients are all here at Dhaka. I mix ground powder paint and aim at plasticity; you can get the necessary chemicals too. When ready-made paints are available, I don't venture into the exercise of paint creation, sitting in Dhanmondi."
Asked to say a few words on his cement-like sculpture seen earlier at The National Museum, Juise said, "As a student, while carrying on with my art work along with the creation of masks, along with print making, where I had to learn wood-cut printing as well as engravings; I naturally experimented with colours, along the way, in my journey as an artist. I plastered colours on large boards (3 ft. by 6 ft.), using rollers and engraving methods. Gradually I progressed to the cement -like sculpted forms, that has been written about, earlier in The Daily Star. In my works I combined figurative work with geometrical forms and in, and I always tried to use symbolic, which have an underlying socioeconomic cum political message."
Saidul Haque Juise has always wanted to maintain a low profile, although his exhibitions have been held even at Copenhagen; and he is being considered, at present, for a foreign contract for the scenario and essential ingredients for the shooting of "Sesame Street". This shooting is due to be held at Film Development Corporation. Dhaka, as the well-known artist and teacher, Fareha Zeba, his wife informed after the interview at his residence. He is one of the main participants of "Air Bash", an exhibition to be held at the British Council, along with Ra Kajol, an artist of Bangladeshi origin, now residing in Denmark. He belongs to the intellectually motivated "Shomay" group to which also belong a number of prolific but introvert artists belong, today.