Asif Hoque’s paintings of curving, brown-bodied figures in sweeping clouds and grasses belong to an angelic, otherworldly plane. It’s fitting that Mindy Solomon Gallery and curator Ché Morales’s video presentation of the artist’s recent body of work, “Lover’s Rock” (2020), places his canvases in an ivy-filled temple, surrounded by rolling hills and set to the soundtrack of birdsongs.
Hoque’s celestial creatures serve as reflections of his multicultural identity. The 29-year-old artist was born in Rome to Bangladeshi parents, raised between Rome and South Florida, and is now based in New York. “I had three cultures in me by the time I was ten,” Hoque has shared.
