Buried in the layers of calligraphic forms at the center of this mural is its poetic title: Our Colors Make Us Beautiful. Artist Muhammad Zaman’s wide-ranging projects—from works on paper and paintings to this mural, his largest work to date—are all grounded in language. His compositions come together through an organic accumulation of thought fragments in the three languages that inform his identity: English, the language of his adopted home; Bengali, the language of his homeland; and Arabic, the language of his religion.

Here, these messages peek through abstract passages of interwoven paint. In Our Colors Make Us Beautiful, Zaman explores the possibilities of verbal and visual expression to bring about mutual understanding and empathy among people from diverse walks of life.

Content and images sourced from Buffalo AKG Art Museum.