DOT Desk: A wise man once said, “A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” That was very much the case with young artist Hasura Akther Rumky, a Charukala alum. Hasura used to work as an assistant coordinator at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy and was also a curator for the 19th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh 2022. But a job was keeping her from becoming an artist full-time. She took a leap of faith; left her job and took up painting as a career, reports TBS.
Now Hasura is what we call a successful artist, with three solo art exhibitions to her name in less than a year, two of which were abroad, in Greece and Japan. In January, she hosted her first solo exhibition ‘Self and Others’ at Alliance Francaise de Dhaka. Then came her second in May, titled ‘Freedom & Peace’ in Greece and her latest ‘Silent Horizons’ in Japan, in August. The Unesco Action Art club funded the exhibition ‘Freedom & Peace’. “In October 2022, I attended an art workshop in Greece hosted by Unesco, where I drew two paintings. The president of the Action Art Club loved those works and even took them into his personal collection,” she said. “He adored the Bangali essence and texture of my artwork and I got the opportunity to organise my very own exhibition all the way out in Greece,” she added.
‘Freedom & Peace’ was Hasura’s first solo exhibition outside of Bangladesh, at the Club for Unesco Piraeus and Islands Cultural Centre, Piraeus in Greece. It was received rather grandly warmly by the audience there because of the very Bangali essence of the show – for example, a self-portrait of Rumky wearing a ‘teep’.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, a competitive art exhibition titled ‘Bangabandhu International Art Exhibition’ was held at the Kahal Gallery in Tokyo, Japan. Hasura took part in it with a portrait of Bangabandhu.