Afzal Hossain, Untitled, Oil on canvas, 48″ x 36″
This week we welcome Afzal Hossain. Hossain is a painter, gallery director and business owner based in Queens. His paintings and multimedia works have been exhibited in solo and group shows in New York City and Bangladesh. A graduate of Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture, Afzal worked at Robert A.M. Stern Architects as a designer before starting his solo practice focused on painting and design projects.
Afzal Hossain, Untitled, Oil on canvas, 18″ x 24″
Since 2007, Afzal has curated gallery shows featuring Queens-based artists at his art space Gallery 77 in Jackson Heights, a hub for the neighborhood’s creative community. The gallery hosts monthly exhibition openings, community art projects, charity auctions and receptions for local arts organizations.
Afzal Hossain, Untitled, Oil on canvas, 24″ x 36″
His new show, “GARDEN BEDS,” is now on view at Gallery 77.
He completed this series of paintings earlier this year, when fear and illness caused by Covid-19 gripped his community in Queens. As winter faded into spring, he started riding his bicycle almost daily through the neighborhoods of Queens to reach his studio, where he could escape safely into his work. At first, the city was almost soundless and empty of people, but the beauty of nature would not be silenced by the pandemic. Trees blossomed, flowers bloomed, and he was inspired to bring this natural life into a new series of paintings that would start where the previous studies of line and friction left off.
