Fading Warmth brings together a collection of paintings, sketchbook pages, etchings, and drawings by Tafsia Muzib Dana.
As part of our residency programme, we hosted Tafsia Muzib Dana, a Fine Art graduate from the Leeds Arts University who specialises in Oil Painting. Fading Warmth brings together a collection of paintings, sketchbook pages, etchings, and drawings made over the last six months during this residency period. Created on canvas, wood, and repurposed book covers, these works offer a glimpse into Dana’s world—her memories, observations, and the people and places that stay with her.
Dana paints what she knows and loves: family members, beloved pets, local flower markets, quiet streets, and everyday moments. Though her subjects change, a warm yellow light runs through the work. It is a colour she carries from her childhood in Dhaka, an overcrowded city embodying scorching summers, ceaseless movement and warmth of its people.
Each year, Dana returns to Dhaka and finds a different city waiting for her. Familiar two-storied houses disappear and new towers rise, diminishing the old simpler ways of life. Yet certain things remain: small neighbourhood shops, weathered houses, hand-painted rickshaws, and conversations over a cup of chai. These are the details that draw her attention and find their way into her paintings.
At the heart of the exhibition is the memory of Dhaka’s distinctive light—a soft yellow-orange glow that bathes the city, illuminating the otherwise ordinary places. Some paintings are small and are made almost instantaneously, acting almost like fragments of time. Others are larger, unhurried works, built gradually through layers of acrylic and oil paint. Their thick, textured surfaces stand as evidence of their slow making, becoming acts of recollection that preserve traces of the past.
Join us for the launch on Thursday 16 July 2026 from 6pm, and the exhibition will run until 30 July 2026.
The exhibition will be open:
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday – 12 – 4pm.
Select weekends, bookable by appointment – for more information please email hello@eaststreetarts.org.uk
See more of Tafsia’s work on Instagram @art_danatafsia
