Visitors at the exhibition. — Snigdha Zaman

UK based Bangladeshi artist Abu Jafar’s solo art exhibition, titled ‘Ekush Bochor’ [21 years], is displaying the artist’s recent works, 21 years after his debut solo exhibition in Dhaka, at the newly opened Institute of Art and Culture in Gulshan in the city. His last exhibition in the city, titled ‘The Dews of the Morning’, was held at the British Council in 1990.
Abu Jafar, a member of The Royal Society of British Artists, is also credited with 13 solo art exhibitions abroad, mostly in England.
His feelings, expectations, relations with nature and human beings, his nostalgia for the country, reaction to the political and social degradation and also his personal physical agony of having an incapacitated left-hand, are being artistically transported on 40 unique paintings, mostly in acrylic on canvas. Few of the works are acrylic on paper, glass works and digital print works.
On one of the fabulous paintings titled ‘The Face-4’, Abu Jafar depicts a deprived expression of a young woman while a blue notebook, resembling knowledge, is being squeezed in her hand; she holds a pen in another hand, stained in red. ‘This painting represents the suppressed condition of the majority of women in Bangladesh, especially my friends and classmates in the late 1990s, who had to endure severe obstacles to get an education because of the instable political situation,’ said Abu Jafar, who was then a student of Dhaka Charukala under Dhaka University.
In the acrylic painting ‘The Blood Not Yet Dry’, Abu Jafar depicts varied synchronised lines and dots on the mostly blue canvas, where a soaking red resembles blood. The painting refers to the period between 1996 and 2012, and highlights the obnoxious military aggression on the civilians of Iraq and the plight of the innocent people whose blood and untimely demise remain alive in the heart of the artist.
In the huge painting ‘Connection’, Jafar depicts names in obscure alphabets, to maintain an appeal of universal language, using harmonic lines. The painting shows his affection for maintaining the eternal play between dark and light, using chiaroscuro method. 
The final touch on the paintings was done during the one month programme under the ‘Artist in Residence Program’ of IAC, for promoting creative artists. Jafar also added simple drawings on the glass covers of a few paintings, which are reflected on the coloured canvases, letting the audience enjoy a journey into paintings.
Art critic Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam, a mentor of the artist, inaugurated the show on April 27, which will run from 12 pm to 8 pm until May 9.