Originally a visual artist from Bangladesh, where I was born, I immigrated to Canada in 1990 and have since continued my work in Saskatoon. In addition to exhibiting my work within Canada, I have helped to represent the country’s diverse cultural communities in exhibitions worldwide. Specifically, I have exhibited in Australia, Germany, England, Japan, China, Bulgaria, India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Yugoslavia, France, Italy, Norway, Spain, Republic of Macedonia, Poland and the United States of America. In 1995, I was honoured with the International Award in Barcelona, Spain.

Since I began my artistic career, my work has undergone many changes. Initially, I explored formed qualities with emphasis on emotional content in a semi-abstract style. Since then, my style and orientation have shifted toward abstracted colours and the use of recognizable idiom to explore my internal world of thought, feeling and intuition based on life experiences. These visual symbols are recognizable, but are not intended as real or concrete realities. They refer to ideas or experiences in same way maps refer to specific locations. The map is not what it depicts, but only conveys the references of places with respect to one another. The map is essentially a metaphor and not the thing itself, offering a sense of familiarization and placement in foreign surroundings when the recognizable symbols are used. My work is like a map in the sense that it utilizes readable symbols to portray an idea or quality.

In my paintings, I created a space where living forms experience their own transformation from one state to another. Images of landscapes are generations of life-form and valuable link between growth and decay. The inner images in my painting are symbols eminent in all cultures throughout time – life fertility and repose. I assemble these images to highlight their natural beauty and abstracted form, shape, colour, texture and placement in the landscape. Each painting is a synthesis of the varied cultural influences that have shaped my visual consciousness. These influences converge and create ordered complexity to convey a simple message: reverence for life.

I see my work as form of symbolic realism where the idea itself is suspended in time and particular concept is attached to the objects with the image. Each object is a prop to create the general atmosphere of the image, leaving ideas to be interpreted by the viewer and creating an atmosphere of contemplation.

Alamgir Huque
2008