An internationally exhibiting artist who honed his craft at Norwich University of the Arts, has returned to Norwich from India to put on his latest solo show.

Alec Cumming, who graduated from the university with a degree in Fine Art in 2007, is presenting some of his abstract paintings created in Asia in his show To Wander, To Lust at the Gallery at NUA, in St Georges Street.

These latest works were created in Neb Sarai in India, where he has been working on increasingly larger canvases, and he returns to Norwich fresh from his first solo exhibition at the British Council Queen's Gallery in Delhi.

His next solo show is already confirmed in New York.

Mr Cumming said: 'It is very exciting to have a show at NUA, it feels like success, a homecoming.

'To Wander, To Lust presents paintings from two years I spent in India, which has informed a lot of what's going on in my work. I didn't go to India essentially to paint Indian things, I went to paint. The exposure to India has come out in the paintings organically.

'People say my work is abstract, and to some extent it is, but there are things in the paintings which suggest form.

'I think of it like a foreign language. In India I would spend a lot of time at parties not talking because everyone was speaking Hindi. As I started to learn Hindi I would pick up on words, much like in paintings you pick up on forms, and base the narrative of the conversation on those words.

'It didn't matter if I was wrong, it was about listening and gaining a great sense of pleasure from hearing that language. That's how I want people to look at my paintings, finding that narrative within them, wandering and lusting through them.'

To Wander, To Lust is brought to the Gallery at NUA through the British Council, which fosters the exchange of cultural expression and ideas between people around the world, and Art 18/21, which has been introducing a host of Indian and UK artists to each other's audiences for several years.

• To Wander, To Lust is at The Gallery at NUA, in St Georges Street, until Saturday, January 11. It is open Tuesday to Saturdays 12pm to 5pm. Admission is free. The Gallery at NUA will be closed from Tuesday, December 24 to Wednesday, January 1.