Mubtasim Alvee

b. 2001

Mubtasim Alvee (b. 2021) is a multi-disciplinary artist, animator, and activist based in Dhaka. Currently pursuing his MFA in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Dhaka University. His practice is rooted in abstraction and perception, driven by a belief in possibility and the potential for change. His work engages with open-ended visual ideas that reflect not only personal exploration but also a broader commitment to social and collective transformation. In his early years, alongside his studio practice, he volunteered, engaging with collaborative cultural platforms and remaining closely connected to music and interdisciplinary practices, reflecting an interest in shared experiences across media. He is the founder of Syllaবাদ(Syllabaad), an organisation that critically engages with pedagogical infrastructures, approaching art and education as collective and collaborative processes. He also founded the Charukola Animation Society, a space dedicated to learning, experimentation, and exchange within animation practices. Alvee and his works are connected to interdisciplinary and collective practices, extending beyond individual expression toward building shared cultural and creative environments. Alvee emphasised creating interactive experiences and fostering artistic dialogues among peers. The works emerge from a process-driven practice rooted in Pareidolia, the human tendency to perceive figures and meaning within abstraction. Through this method, forms are not imposed but discovered, allowing images to surface from within chaos, much like memory, identity, and emotion.

Artist Statement

My practice moves between abstraction, perception, and process, where painting becomes less an act of representation and more a way of discovering what already exists within uncertainty. I am interested in how images form not through control, but through emergence—how meaning can surface from what is unresolved, fragmented, or incomplete.

A key part of my process is rooted in Pareidolia, the human tendency to see forms within randomness. I allow this condition to guide my work, where figures, memories, and emotional traces appear gradually through layered gestures. In this space, abstraction is not empty; it is full of possibility.

I approach the psyche not as a private or isolated territory, but as something shaped collectively—formed through history, politics, culture, and inherited systems. What we often understand as personal instability or fragmentation may actually be reflections of wider social conditions. My work attempts to hold these overlapping realities within a single visual field.

Time in my paintings is non-linear. Childhood, adolescence, and the present coexist, folding into one another. These layers resist clear narratives and instead mirror how memory behaves—shifting, recursive, and constantly rewritten.

My practice is also shaped by collaboration and shared experience. Alongside painting, I have engaged in building collectives and spaces that question traditional hierarchies of making and learning. For me, art is not only an individual pursuit, but a shared condition—formed through dialogue, exchange, and collective presence.

Ultimately, my work asks how identity is formed within systems we do not always see, and how painting can become a space where those invisible structures are felt, questioned, and reimagined.