Nazlee Laila Mansur
Bangladeshi visual artist
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Nazlee Laila Mansur (Bengali: নাজলী লায়লা মনসুর; born 1952) is a Bangladeshi visual artist known for her figurative paintings that address women's issues, social inequality, and urban life.[1] She has taught at Chittagong Art College for over thirty years.[2] Her work is held in the collection of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan.[3]
Nazlee Laila Mansur | |
|---|---|
নাজলী লায়লা মনসুর | |
| Born | 1952 (age 73–74) Rajshahi, East Bengal, Dominion of Pakistan |
| Citizenship | Bangladesh |
| Education | |
| Known for | Painting, drawing |
| Notable work | Usable Painting series |
| Style | Figurative, Photorealism, Pop art |
| Movement | Contemporary Bangladeshi art |
| Awards | Sanskriti Pratisthan residency (2001–2002) |
Early life and education
Nazlee Laila Mansur was born in 1952 in Rajshahi, East Bengal, Dominion of Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh).[1] She came from a family in which all the siblings were interested in drawing and painting; her mother also made ornate designs for needlecraft.[1]
She completed her Master of Arts in fine arts from the University of Chittagong.[4] According to some sources, she completed her master's degree in the early 1970s, while the Bengal Foundation gives the year as 1974.[1][4] Her teachers at the University of Chittagong included Rashid Chowdhury, Murtaja Baseer, and Devdas Chokroborty.[1]
Artistic practice
Mansur works primarily in acrylic on canvas and also produces pen drawings.[2] Her style incorporates vibrant, saturated colours and photorealism.[5] She has described her aim from the very beginning as working with local pop art.[1]
In terms of artistic genre, Mansur's deepest influence is rickshaw art and cinema hoardings.[1] She has stated, "I wish to be able to paint like the rickshaw painters".[1] She is also influenced by Marc Chagall, David Hockney, and Edward Munch.[1] She has said, "In the interest of my work I incline towards whoever that serves my purpose".[1] She has described her artistic development in three phases: early social commentary, a self-reflexive period, and a later phase critiquing the role of art itself.[1] In the late 1990s and early 2000s, she produced works under a series titled "Bandaged Bondage", in which she imagined herself in isolation.[5] This sense of powerlessness led her to doubt the value of her own paintings, and she began a series titled "Usable Paintings" ("Re-usable Painting"), in which she satirised her own works.[5]
Career
Mansur has been teaching art since 1976.[1] She has taught at the Government Art College (Chittagong Art College) in Chittagong for over thirty years.[2] In 1978, she published a research paper entitled "The Art of Glazed Tile Decoration in Medieval Bengal" in the journal of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.[1] In 1992, she represented Bangladesh in the First South Asian Festival in India.[4] In 1993, she participated in the international show "Contemporary Women Artists from Bangladesh" in Calcutta, India.[1]
In 2001, she attended the Second Trans-disciplinary Women Studies Conference organised by the ASR Institute of Women's Studies in Lahore, Pakistan, as a member of the Bangladeshi delegation.[1] In 2005, the Bengal Foundation produced a 24-minute documentary on Mansur titled An Allegory of Self-exploration (also known as Atma Dahaner Rupakalpa), directed by Wahid Tarek.[4][6]
She has served on the selection committee for the National Art Exhibition organised by the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.[7] She has participated in artists' workshops organised by Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Goethe Institute, and Bengal Foundation.[4]
Exhibitions
Mansur has had four solo exhibitions.[4]
Solo exhibitions
- 2000: Shilpakala Academy, Chittagong[4]
- 2001: Zainul Gallery, Dhaka University, Dhaka[4]
- 2002: Lalitkala Academy, New Delhi, India[4]
- 2005: "Metaphor of Agony", Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts, Dhaka[4]
Mansur has also participated in exhibitions in Russia, China, Jordan, Nepal, India, UAE (Sharjah), France, and Denmark, as well as in Asian Art Biennials and National Art Exhibitions.[4]
Critical reception
Fayza Haq, writing in The Daily Star in 2005, described Mansur's work as capturing "rootlessness and oppression". Haq noted that Mansur's earlier works were social satires, but as conditions deteriorated, "satire was unable to delineate the piling up crises".[2]
A review in Star Weekend Magazine in 2005 characterised Mansur's work as moving from social observation to a critique of art itself: "Her transformation from the witness to the social phenomena to the disillusioned artist who is ready to renounce her own past artistic efforts ... was a slow one."[5]
Rahnuma Ahmed, writing in the catalogue for the 2005 exhibition "Metaphor of Agony", described Mansur's palette as "rooted in the present" and her technique as "photo-realist". Ahmed observed that Mansur's characters "represent society's inequities, oppression, rootlessness and perhaps, dreams and longings". Ahmed also noted that Mansur's story-telling is "indisputably feminist" and that she "takes on a subaltern art-form non-appropriatively".[8]
The BBC, reporting on the "Parallel Realities" exhibition in Blackburn in 2006, described Mansur's work as showing "the vibrant face of modern Asian art".[9]
Collections
Mansur's work is held in the collection of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan. The museum holds at least three of her works from the "Usable Painting" series, acquired in 2005:[3]
- Usable Painting: Bed and Curtain (2005, acrylic on canvas)
- Usable Painting: The Dining Table (2005, acrylic on canvas)
- Louis Kahn's Dream: Girl (2002, acrylic on canvas)
Her work has also been included in exhibitions drawn from the Bengal Foundation collection and the Abul Khair collection.[4]
Awards and residencies
- 2001–2002: Awarded residency by Sanskriti Pratisthan, New Delhi, India, under the programme "Bond Beyond Borders"[4]
Publications
- "The Art of Glazed Tile Decoration in Medieval Bengal" (research paper), published in the journal of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, 1978[1]
- Metaphor of Agony: Nazlee Laila Monsur – catalogue published in conjunction with her solo exhibition at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts in 2005, with contributions by Rahnuma Ahmed[10]
- An Allegory of Self-exploration (also known as Atma Dahaner Rupakalpa), documentary film by Wahid Tarek, produced by Bengal Foundation, 2005[4] (Documentary)