Katerina Don
Bengal Art Lounge

How would you describe Dhaka in five words or less? Chaotic, clamorous, teaming, intense, unharnessed. They all fall short. Many would be less kind in their accounts. And perhaps any description would be incomplete without mention of one of the most integral elements of Dhaka – the traffic. The rickety rickshaws, boxy CNG’s, swerving cars, monstrous buses and skeletal bicycles, are all actual characters with unique features and identities. They are the true owners and rulers of Dhaka. The city mascot is a vehicle.
It is a common joke that Dhaka is like an old orphan that has no chance of ever finding a loving, nurturing family. It is so easy to fall out of love with Dhaka, to ignore it and be cruel to it, to distance oneself and to dream of escape plans. It is much more difficult to try to love this city, to see it as if for the first time and to embrace it for what it is. To approach it unconditionally, without expectations or standards set by other cities.
This is what Jon Den Hartigh is offering us, an opportunity to see Dhaka anew. To see it deconstructed and interpreted. Jon shows us a colorful Dhaka, an absurd melting pot of people and machines, a city which barely strikes that perfect balance between chaos and functionality. The most remarkable thing about Jon’s works is that he managed to capture the ephemeral quality of time in Dhaka – it is a fusion of lingering past (which must be physically deconstructed, as in the ship breaking yards of Chittagong) the squashed sliver of present, which is continuously (ceaselessly) pressured by the eminent future, which is just about to happen…almost…here it comes, just around the corner…
It is a city which demands a lot from its dwellers. It is brutal in its honesty, and unable to be other than what it is. You can either love it or hate it, but loving it is much more expansive and gratifying. Where else will you see a van rickshaw loaded with a merry go round driving in the middle of the night down the avenue? Where else will you see a man standing on the trunk of an old Chevrolet riding it through the thick of traffic on a busy road? There are so many small, absurdities which slowly cast a spell.
The spectator can walk away from this exhibition thinking this was a show about graphic design and not what is considered to be ‘high art’. It would not be completely untrue, the works have a very strong aesthetic and are undoubtedly decorative. But there is more to it than composition and colour schemes, it is an artist’s attempt to understand the strange and complex world around him, by copying it, again and again.

Artist Statement
I am drawn to focus upon and use, like many other people, things from any place other than from where I come. This romantic consumption of the “other,” alongside an obsession with the omnipresent artifacts and ubiquitous characteristics that identify a place as unique, has inspired this collection of work.
Why is it that we collect items and trinkets from the places we visit? Pulled together by these ideas and drawing from a plethora of inspirational sources, this collection uses color and multiples as a meditation on the mundane facets of Dhaka, and by extension, any place that is “other,” that seems exotic, novel and new. Facets of the city that make Dhaka, Dhaka — but that draw in and captivate all who see and experience it for the first time or with a fresh perspective: rickshaws, engineered just enough to be efficient; Myna birds perched on ridiculously haphazard coils of wires hanging in the air, sometimes touching the ground; CNGs, welded incages, simultaneously protecting and trapping; a pair of local, handmade arcade games, a fusion of western pop culture with local craftsmanship, serving as reminders of days gone by.
I work in multiples; the larger paintings are in sets of 3 and the smaller ones are done in groups of 10. My work starts slowly and deliberately, like a printmaker, and then grows looser and more gestural, like a painter. I start with a photo, create a stencil, print it and then layer on paint. Working with multiples of the same image frees me to focus on the process, to strip away concern about particulars. Doing something once provides no opportunity for improvement and further experimentation; multiples, on the other hand, provide me with that opportunity. If I were using photo-editing software, I could change colors with a few clicks of the mouse; instead I choose to use a paintbrush. Inspired by the subjectivity of color, and Josef Albers’ notion that there is no such thing as color theory, I paint intuitively. I like seeing the colors next to each other and examine the ways in which they interact with each other. Each painting is complete on its own, fulfilling its telos in relation to its counterparts.
Notable inspirations:  The “Man on a Rickshaw” series was inspired by a photo of Evelyn Cameron (1886-1928) standing on a horse named Jim.  Cameron is known for her photos of frontier life in Montana 100 years ago.  The “Arcade” series was inspired by a beautiful pair of abandoned Bangladeshi arcade games that were removed from someone’s collection. I was especially drawn to the unfinished wood/ handmade look as opposed to the glossy 80’s graphics I grew up with.