Art
Azmeer's Lust for Life
Mindscape 28, water colour and mixed mediums, 56x76cm, 2012.
Azmeer Hussain, a young Bangladeshi painter who has lived in New York for 13 years during which he did his paintings, combines water-colour and mixed media in his solo exhibition at Bengal Gallery. His abstract works are dominated by horizontal lines with three-dimensional effects.
Through the Mind’s Eye 2, water colour and mixed mediums, 40x30cm, 2010.
Having been in Canada and the USA he studied French Impressionist art as much as he could going into abstract work as he has always been comfortable with landscape. “I study a place, I get exposed to it and it affects me," says Azmeer. "Then I start my work, forms which I create on my own, and not exactly what I saw. This is therefore not realistic and moves on to the semi abstract. Some of his colours are full of joie de vivre—jade, yellow, pink, and mauve and purple like some bunch of grapes. In one portions it is browns and greys. Where he deals with depiction of planks of wood as in the exhibit of the duo at the Bengal Gallery.
At one time he lived near Coney Island, thus the sea affected him intensely, he says. The colours of the sea change with time, the morning colours are different from the evening ones. In his series “Through the mind's eyes," he depicts what looks like the wood of an old gate or ancient door. The texture and the effect of ancient wood is something that appeals to the artist. Thus we see the difference of the colours of the two different sections. The planks, gray and brow, beige yellow ochre, use muted colours. These stand in strong contrast to the aquamarine, jade and rose which he uses in his other “mindscapes” to create his environment. Sometimes other colours come in or creep in unconsciously. He recollects the colours he has come across over the hills or on the beach. They could represent stones, pebbles or brushwood.
(left)Through the Mind’s Eye 10, water colour and mixed mediaums, 40x30cm, 2012.(right) Mindscape 5, water colour,76x56cm,2013.
Towards the end, says the painter, his homesickness grew acute. He had many joint ventures in the US but he hoped his first solo would be in his own country.
Mindscape 28, water colour and mixed mediums,75x110cm, 2013. While painting was his priority he did odd jobs as being a museum guide and a waiter as well as at galleries to sustain himself. In 2003 in New York he worked for three months at the “Potter's Field” learning pottery and ceramics. From 2003 to 2005 he did several courses on drawing alone at the School of Visual Art. From 2006 to 2009 he studied at the “Art students of the League of New York. The series at the Bengal Gallery are from 2009 to 2013. He had gone to Canada and the US on his own strength. Growing weary of studies at the Dhaka College of Art he had left for greener pastures. He got the opportunity to see several museums while based at New York—which is the dream of every artist.
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