When art is anybody's game
Najib’s contention was that of enthusiast who believed everybody had in them what it took to become an artist.
Anyone, according to painter Najib Tareq, whose solo set to end this week at the city's Dwip gallery, may easily accomplish what he has done with paint and brush. Overlap this with how a couple of school children took to painting after visiting the show inspired by the titled, which says "Anybody can do it, please do it…". The children's visit sparked a painting spree and their parents started posting pictures on Facebook, drawing the attention of the artist, which only made him happy.
On Friday, when the Najib was speaking about how he veered away from his earlier practice, which he used to base on figurative motifs, some members of the audience sought clarification whether he really believed that the kind of abstraction he explored could easily be matched by anyone who felt like taking a stab at painting?
Najib's contention was that of enthusiast who believed everybody had in them what it took to become an artist. However, one needed to approach art-making in a spirit of freedom, he pointed out.
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In fact, this is exactly how he began to produce the recent series of abstract works which were mostly the result of his engagement with child art.
"I began to emulate my boy-child when he was three or four. Though the question was how far a forty-year-old man could accomplish by doing so," the artist said during the talk to make people understand that his pursuit was an impossible one. But he was not new to non-figurative or non-objective painting.
"When I was known in the 1990s as a figurative painter, I also had a parallel practice of producing non-representative work," Najib pointed out.
The exhibition that was inaugurated on November 29 testifies to this. There are several ways the artist reached his aesthetic goals. They were the result of a series of artistic activity that at once created scope for rethinking of the picture plain in the light of his enthusiasm for gesture, geometry as well as organic forms and most importantly the freedom to abandon the pursuit of a singular style.
