Exhibition Review
C. Stuart & Jane H. Hunt Gallery, Buffalo, New York
What would you do if you knew you had a year to live?
I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that everyone has thought about this question, from philosophers and religious leaders to friends talking over coffee. The question has no easy or correct answer. Everyone dies but very few are prepared for it. In Surrender to Mercy, artist Muhammad Z. Zaman explores the emotional, physical, and spiritual impact of that question. But for Zaman, this was no thought exercise. Diagnosed with cancer in 2023, he succumbed to the disease in early December 2025. This exhibition is his answer to that question.
I discovered Zaman’s work a little over a year ago. Born in Bangladesh, Muhammad Zaman immigrated to America in the early 2000s. Zaman’s work, a mixture of calligraphy and modernist styles, was expressive and vivid in color and form. While it looked like writing, he seemed to be using the abstract shapes of Arabic letters as a starting point for his compositions. Calligraphy is one of my favorite mediums and his art reminded me of the elaborate imperial insignia created for Ottoman sultans or an illuminated manuscript. I was fascinated. Through his work, I learned about hurufiyya, an Arabic art movement that combines calligraphy with modern artistic principles to make the traditional artform more expressive.
In 2018, the Buffalo AKG Art Gallery commissioned Muhammad Zaman for its Public Art Initiative. The result is Our Colors Make Us Beautiful (2018), an exploration of “the possibilities of verbal and visual expression to bring about mutual understanding and empathy among people from diverse walks of life.” The painting throbs with energy and life. The center mass reminds me of a swarm of bees while the lines and shapes to the sides swirl and flow across the wall.
Located at 1131 Broadway, Buffalo, this massive work, the artist’s largest, is an example of the style he is most known for: Calligraffiti. As the name suggests, calligraffiti combines calligraphy with the dynamic styles and media of urban street art. It is not vandalism. Instead, it tries to revitalize an ancient artform by mixing it with modern, urban colors, rhythm, and symbolism.
Just as I was beginning my journey with his art, it started to evolve.
Every work in Surrender to Mercy was painted after Zaman received his terrible news, but instead of getting lost in depression, he turned to his art to get through his pain and fear. According to his wife, Becca Bass, Zaman immersed himself in “color, and shape, and form, and grace… and movement… as a way of bringing those things into his life. He became a lot freer. He became a lot more gestural. [He used] different things he found around just because it seems fun or interesting.”[i] Zaman’s art became therapeutic, free, and alive. “He gave himself permission to let things be more emergent and intuitive…[,] not because it carried a message, but because it felt good and brought joy.”[ii] He also found strength in his family and his Muslim faith.
Ya Rab!: Mercy Over Anger 1-3 (2025)
Ya Rab! is a series of three smallish paintings where brush strokes of gray and silver are painted onto black backgrounds. Looking closer, lines and shapes of copper and gold can be seen, too. A jumble of brush strokes occupies the lower half of the canvas. I think they look like a pile of falling objects. The top half of each is almost empty.
At the gallery, the canvases were hung so that the paintings were stacked in a narrow vertical column in a corner away from the rest of the show. While the rest of the paintings in the show explode with color, these works are strictly neutrals. The phrase “ya rab” may translate to “Oh Lord,” an Arabic expression used in prayer as a plea for mercy.[iii] The exclamation point implies that the phrase was said with a lot of emotion.
Other works in Surrender to Mercy are expressions of hope and love. Some say good-bye. Because of their title, size, and placement, these paintings feel exceptionally personal and express an all-too-human weakness and fear. I can hear Zaman speaking these words as he struggles with his illness, calling out in desperation and relying on Allah’s strength and mercy.
This is a large, colorful painting that takes up a wall opposite a window that looks out onto Lafayette Square. This is a well-titled work. The tangle of colorful lines resembles a patch of wildflowers in a field that is being blown by a breeze. Blues, reds, pinks, and yellows pop against each other and glow over the white canvas. Orange diamonds hovering over the jumble remind me of buzzing bees. This is a love letter to Becca. He compares her to a beautiful flower — vibrant, fresh, and alive — and encourages her to live on.
“Ethereal” describes something that is airy, undefined, otherworldly, or delicate. Zaman’s colors are light and the strokes fill the canvas, blending and merging with each other. They seem to phase in and out of the background like objects in a thick fog. The paint is applied thinly and delicately. So much so that the rough texture of the paper surface can be seen through the paint making the strokes feel weightless and delicate. Because of this, the painting itself feels… ethereal.
This work reminds me of faith, how delicate it can be during life’s most difficult times. It also reminds me of how wispy and uncertain life itself can be. I like to think Zaman’s use of relaxing blues and purples represents a serenity in the face of uncertainty.
I liked how the show’s curators displayed Ethereal. It hangs on the wall opposite the entrance to Beebe’s on the Square, the café connected to the Hunt Gallery. It is the first work you see as you walk into this room and the colors glow under the lighting. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
The …What Is Series is a group of three large works about acceptance. Entitled Embrace What Is, Be Present with What Is, and Surrender to What Is, these paintings are swirling, pulsing masses full of energy and life. I feel like each mass is about to explode off the canvases, like a star about to go nova. In each painting, the circle is surrounded by a cloud of pigment and shapes have already flung off the main mass. This reminds me of unstable atoms. The surrounding white canvases seem to contain the energy… but not for much longer.
Of the three, I like Be Present with What Is the most. While the other titles imply actions and their jumble of clashing colors vibrate, Be Present is calm. Its colors are quiet blues and white. Notice how the surrounding haze is not as defined as the others, and none of its forms have been flung out from the center. This atom is stable. To embrace something and to surrender to something could imply a conflict or struggle. To be present with something is to simply exist. To be. Nothing else is required.
Dancing with My Beloved I & II (2025)
When I visited the exhibition, I was familiar with Zaman’s style displayed in the paintings above. His experimentation in geometric abstraction caught me by surprise. These works, like Dancing with My Beloved I & II represent the freedom Becca spoke about when he allowed himself to play and have fun even as his illness advanced. They hold a special meaning for her, too. Becca singled Dancing with My Beloved I & II out specifically as her favorite paintings in the show:
He and I did [these] sitting next to each other over twelve hours, over many days…. Every step he said, “Well, what do we think should go here? What shape?” [She responded,] “What if we did a row of squares here?” “OK, what colors should we do?” We did it in conversation, and so it was an intense and meaningful time together. And it was a sweet moment, because… I had realized I had learned so much about his process by watching him… I felt so close to him… and he enjoyed involving [his family].[iv]
Painted in November, just before his death, Dancing with My Beloved I & II are his final messages of love to her. Zaman also created similar works for his children. This time with her husband was a precious memory to her and I feel blessed that she shared it with me.
The C. Stuart & Jane H. Hunt Gallery is one of the smaller venues I’ve been to. It gets crowded fast which hampers free movement within the space, but that should only be an issue on opening nights or during receptions. Its location is ideal, however, centrally located in downtown Buffalo, New York, filling the first-floor space of the Hunt Real Estate headquarters building on Lafayette Square. It is across the street from the central branch of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library and the historic Hotel at the Lafayette, and a short walk from the theatre district, city hall, Sahlen Field, and other landmarks. Attached to the Hunt Gallery is Beebe’s on the Square, a charming lounge-style restaurant that hosts visual and musical artists throughout the year, including the Art Meets Jazz concert series.
[i] Becca Bass, in discussion with the author, January 2026.
[ii] Becca Bass, Surrender to Mercy: The Final Works of Muhammad Z. Zaman, exh. cat. (C. Stuart and Jane H. Hunt Art Gallery, 2026) 11.
[iii] Translation from Google Translate, accessed March 8, 2026.
[iv] Bass, in discussion with the author, January 2026.
© March 18, 2026
Lady Bison 