Laila Sharmeen’s 12th solo exhibition begins at Alliance Française de Dhaka on Saturday

Noted Bangladeshi Expatriate Painter, Laila Sharmeen’s solo exhibition will begin at 6:00 pm at the La Galerie of Alliance Française de Dhaka on Saturday (May 20). 

The 10-day show titled ‘Golden Bengal’ will be inaugurated by the Speaker of the Parliament, Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, MP.

The inaugural ceremony will also be attended by Ambassador of France to Bangladesh, Marie Masdupuy, and President of Bangladesh Garment Manufactures and Exports Association, Mr. Faruque Hassan, among others.

Laila’s 30 artworks will be demonstrated at the exhibition. It will remain open from 3:00pm to 9:00pm every day for visitors, from May 21 to 29th except for Sunday.

Laila Sharmeen is a leading Bangladeshi artist with 11 solos and over 50 international shows to her credit. In 2011 she won a Purchase Prize at the prestigious 16th Space International Print Biennial held at OCI Museum of Art in Seoul, Korea. She has showcased her recent works in watercolor and print media at the three-day Artexpo New York 2014 in April. Artexpo featured more than 400 innovative exhibiting artists, galleries and publishers from across the globe, showcasing exciting original artwork, prints, paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, ceramics, lithographs, glass works and more.

In October 2013, she exhibited her works at a three-day Art Shopping at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. Over 70 galleries from around the world represented about 1000 artists at this art fair, an annual rendezvous of artists to this epicenter of world art. Argentine art dealer and editor of the Argentina Art Yearbook María Elena Beneito has promoted Laila to this congregation of artists, critics, dealers and art enthusiasts.

Laila represented Bangladesh in 2013 World Art Games held in ifferent cities of Croatia. Over 400 international artists were invited to the event marking Croatia’s accession to European Union. While in Croatia, she did a 10x 40 feet street painting at the Open University of Umag. She decorated her street painting with traditional Bengali motifs of flowers, fish, and birds, and Bangla alphabets to evoke the quintessential colors of Bengal and also pay tribute to Bangladesh’s language movement. She drew the basic design for the 40 feet painting with chalk, explained the color scheme to artists from India, the USA, Colombia, Finland, the Netherlands, and Croatia, and then invited them to apply paint to the work. She also engaged people from the local community and tourists visiting Umag to turn her project into a collaborative-community painting. The scene of the street painting was carnivalesque, especially because of the Pokko Cherri Band from Malaysia that played foot-tapping numbers.

She has also participated in the first Argentine International Contemporary Art Exhibition and the Effectto Biennale in Mexico in 2012. Her works are in the permanent collection of many local and international organization including National Museum of Bangladesh, Izmir Cultural Center, the central bank of Bangladesh and leading telecom company of Bangladesh, Grameenphone.

Her works demonstrate an artist whose sole concern is about devising some playful cultural codes that are intrinsically related to the stories emanating from essential Bengali hearts and psyche. She is keenly conscious of many of the social changes of modern times that are not healthy or natural. They do not have the essentials for the sustenance of humanity. She feels that corrupt politicians and religious bigots have contaminated our view of the world. At the same time, the artificiality of modern life is equally to be blamed. Deeply perturbed by the materialistic greed and alienation of modern man, she has tried to capture the hollowness of modern civilization, the clash of civilization, apartheid, and religious bigotry rendering our planet unlivable. But at the core of her heart, she is romantic dreaming about a utopian world amidst obscurantisms, hypocrisy, and deceit.