An Ordinary day 2018
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Drawing From the Ostracized World  
 
For the past three years I have lived with, and survived aside the overlooked, misunderstood, and  ostracized. In multiple nations around the world, I watched people during the most difficult times of their  lives struggle with their own anxiety, frustration, and anger. How does one find themselves within the  world? What does this speak to the human condition? How can witnessing such an experience help affect  change and a new perspective in the lives of the rest of us? Looking inversely at my own experiences, and  how I embrace and reflect upon the world, the questions that grew increasingly concerning surrounded  art. What is art? What makes a painting a painting? How is it possible to find a balance between  visualization and context? How will the artwork I create fit within the global conversation, or within the  timeline of art during our civilization?   
 
An Ordinary Day 
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In Bangladesh refugees represent some of the longest historically displaced populations of modern day.  Working close with these people as both a psychotherapist and art therapist, I had formulated a direction  of my own work after following their daily lives. This exhibit titled “An Ordinary Day” is meant to  encapsulate the rigor, harshness, and dramatic emotional landscapes that face these people as they  survive; while also recognizing the disparaging discrepancy of experience between the two worlds of the  viewer and the subject. My paintings are an attempt to convey the unique atmosphere of the human  condition that couldn’t otherwise be captured through photography alone.  
 
Behind the Brush 
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As an abstract painter, I’m most driven to explore the contemporary state of our world, and the diversity  of culture, through the trials of those who that society and culture reject. This juxtaposition highlights our  deep rooted desire to survive, which is exhibited in the willpower of the individuals I spend time with  around the world; people forgotten by nations but who refuse to succumb to the harshness of extreme  living environments.