To Commune With The Eternal Soul, An Artist's Journey

Through his more-than-six-year journey as a professional artist, Zahangir Alom has ever-refined his innate capacity to translate heartfelt observations of the natural world into artistic compositions infused with insight.

- Dr. Malay Bala

The result, a rare unity of physical geographies, thought, emotion and interaction, can be witnessed in the mainly watercolour wash collection of “The Uncaged,” his latest solo exhibition, at La Galerie in Dhanmondi’s Alliance Française de Dhaka.

An artist who habitually draws from the wellspring of his experience of Nature’s sights, sounds, textures, tastes and smells, Zahangir routinely connects with the innermost recesses of the Soul of the earth, water and forest. He delights in embodying its music and patterns in his works.

When a human being is imbued with intellect and exuberance, delights in the fullness of life and revels in Nature’s diversity, their creative output indeed becomes as one with the creative self of the Universe. This truth lies at the heart of the inability to detach Zahangir’s artworks from his life philosophies and vision, which are not less creative than the paintings.

The nature-lover and avid traveller employs his boundless curiosity and memory of familiar and foreign landscapes too, although with intuition as chief guide Zahangir can as easily find himself illuminating the buoyancy of a folksong as a Himalayan twilight.

A further source of muse, if any were needed, arises from his work as a critic. In the course of penning reviews of music, dance, drama and of course the visual arts, Zahangir interacts with other artists. Therein arise moments of exhilaration and clarity of just the sort he might later transform with a brush into shapes, figures and colours.