Every weekend he went to the contemporary galleries and this was a great eye opener for him, said the artist. Among the Bangladeshi artists, he greatly admires the works of Mohammed Kibria, Monirul Islam, Abdul Baset and GS Kabir. He likes the photography-based artworks of UK artists Gilbert and George. He also admires the works of David Hockney, Mark Rothko and Francis Bacon. Currently Akbar is holding a solo exhibition of his minimalist works at Kaya Gallery in Dhaka.

At this moment, Akbar said, he is journeying in a landscape after his father passed away. After the death Akbar expressed his feelings for his father on canvas. The artist says he felt his father's presence in shades of white. This is the point of beginning of the white landscapes that he has created. He plays with titanium white and zinc white. Akbar has done a series on the landscape of Toronto -- a place he found amazing. In the paintings he has used three basic colours -- blue, red and yellow. The sky is an arch of varied colours while the snow is a mass of white abstraction. This series is justifiably called "Toronto".

"War and peace" brings in an imaginary landscape. This is a view of a group of flying white birds seen against the snow. In the mass of white is the depiction of the sky, ground and water. The work reflects both conflict and calm. Akbar has used white as the dominant hue as he feels that this is the source of energy. "I go in for abstracts for I think these are what our final thoughts may resemble," he says.

A series of three mixed-media paintings, "Ekti Bangladesh" brings in the map of our country, seen behind cascading colours. The land mass looks like a burst of white light behind bars of colours. Acrylic, enamel, texture gel, sand and air brush have been used in them. In one of the paintings the viewer finds the map in a fairly realistic form. The map appears again in another work, in a semi realistic image, and purely abstract in the last one.

Professor Sara Cardona says that Akbar's paintings are landscapes of dreams and longings. They are also real places where his soul journeys. His paintings oscillate; expanding and contracting through layers of colours -- each associated with the time and space his mind occupied at that moment. "Eventually this physical process resembles breathing," she says, "Like the body inhales and exhales to stay alive, the paint expands and contracts until it reaches a physical form that represents an interior landscape of the artist's spirit."

Akbar has had group and solo exhibitions in Dallas and Dhaka.

The exhibition ends on June 15.