exposure
Intrepid visions: Kazi Monir's take on nature
Kazi Monir began his life as a hawker on Dhaka footpaths and then went on to become a painter of extraordinary visions. His work-surfaces have always been torn out of discarded calendars or cropped from found art-card pieces which he impassionedly treated with printing ink to create his diverse, emotionally fraught, and dream-infused imagery.
Shahinur Rahman, a journalist, who penned a smallish preface to the rather unremarkable two-leaf brochure from the last solo at the Shilpakala Academy gallery– Kazi Monir’s fourth before he succumbed to his illness in April 2008, at the age of 54– tells us that Monir’s has been a self-discovered aesthetics born out of labour and love. The piece also reiterates how like a truly possessed artist Monir took to painting equipped with spoon, surgical tools, and knives, the most unconventional artistic tools that helped the artist achieve the extrusions that always culminated into captivating imagery.