The New Nation - Internet Edition

I first encountered Saleem's work in the vibrant Beijing art scene. An abstract painter, he appeared as a rare find in a contemporary Asian art scene largely dominated with figurative works and mainly concerned with an ever-changing society of urban living. Saleem instead seeks to explore nature, with a vision that encompasses both his experience in Bangladesh and America.

Saleem was born and raised in Bangladesh, but his artistic education took place in both Bangladesh and New York, where he is now based. Like many artists, he sought the peaceful retreat of Long Island, where the natural landscape is a constant and very appropriate source of inspiration.

Saleem's paintings are interpretations of nature, set outside of any time of geographical frame but imbued with a multi-culturalism. His paintings open a dialogue with the soul as they reveal the 'sublime' nature of the world. His art is a source of meditation: a careful viewer who explore each work, moving from the border picture to the different layers, is penetrated by the art. Once the viewer allows him or herself to be enveloped by the painting, it acts as a refuge for the mind and spirit and provides a sense of harmony and balance. The works take the audience on a journey of self-exploration and growth, led by the artist's own journey. Saleem's paintings aim at providing an experience that exceeds the boundaries of the purely aesthetic by expressing the transcendence of nature and filing the spectator with a sense of the discovering the unknown.

Saleem has sought to represent the metaphysics of nature through a fusion of colours and modulated forms. The amateur's first impressions are quite contrasted. The technique of the brush and wash and the relationship between nature and its elements gives the viewer a sense of classicism, especially as far as Asian art is concerned. The washes of paint for instance recall the watery quality of ink landscape painting and calligraphy and abstraction have often been compared. However, the arrangement and strong expressionism are derived from western modern and contemporary artistic endeavours, from Turner and the contemporary Bangladeshi artists. Like the former artists, Saleem also explore 'the moods of nature' and optical phenomena in his work. The artist acknowledges the work of both Mark Rothko and Mohammad Kibria, one of the outstanding Bangladeshi artists of the fifties, as an important source of inspiration. This plural heritage led the artist to create a very personal and intimate style. Like his illustrious predecessors, the artist is concerned with the significance of light, and he strives to express spirituality. Far from solely exploring the relationship between forms and colours, his non-figurative aesthetics have a deep emotional intensity and speak to the imagination. Indeed, this timeless balance gives his artworks both immense grace and tremendous power.

Although the painter describes his practice as spontaneous, the result involves careful planning, especially the more recent paintings of larger size. Instead of describing them as acrylic on canvas, I would like to evoke the term of mixed-media on canvas. Interlocked blocks constitute the first layers. Then denser layers of colours enrich and enlive the work. While the colours may sometimes be violently opposed, they always work in concert, radiating throughout the work and giving the rhythm and solemnity that triggers a viewer's first impression. The washes that act as a bridge fusing these different elements. The final touches ass texture to the two-dimensional surface, giving the illusion of a thirst dimension. The artist's use of materials such as sand on the surface of the painting, giving it s poetic feel.

Saleem's work has received international acclaim. He had exhibitions not only in Bangladesh and the USA but also in India, Brazil, Japan, Serbia, Italy and more recently in China. He had a solo show in the Bangladesh Embassy in the summer of 2007, which led to one at the Shenyang Palace Museum. He was selected with 10 other American artists to participate to the Beijing Olympics for the Art. A number of his pieces are in museum and government or corporate collections.

Laure Raibaut

New York, July 1, 2008