Azernews.Az

A solo exhibition by Azerbaijani artist Farid Rasulov, titled Long Live, Caspian! (Yaşa, Xəzər!), has opened at the OTAQ gallery in Baku's Icherisheher, exploring the ecological challenges facing the Caspian Sea through contemporary art.

Curated by Sitara Ibrahimbeyli, the exhibition is presented as part of the Fly to Baku. Art Weekend. Sense the Future NOW festival and will remain open to visitors until January 15, 2027.

The project focuses on the Caspian Sea as a complex and vulnerable ecosystem, examining the relationships between its inhabitants and the consequences of human activity on their natural habitats.

Through a series of paintings featuring seals, pelicans, sturgeons, coastal vegetation and other representatives of the region's biodiversity, Rasulov draws attention to the environmental pressures affecting the sea.

His works depict abandoned nests separated from marshlands, animals stranded along exposed shorelines and fishing nets threatening aquatic life. These images address the disruption of ecological balance and the gradual disappearance of natural habitats.

The exhibition also presents an unconventional approach to landscape painting, portraying nature as an interconnected system rather than simply a background for human activity.

Another distinctive feature of Rasulov's compositions is their ambiguous relationship with time. The landscapes may represent the Caspian's past, areas of the coastline that remain preserved today, or an imagined future in which damaged ecosystems have recovered.

Through these different interpretations, the artist explores the relationship between environmental preservation, collective memory and responsibility towards future generations.

The exhibition's title, Long Live, Caspian!, reflects its central message concerning the protection of biodiversity and the sustainable use of natural resources.

Alongside Rasulov's paintings, the exhibition features a chest of drawers from the Black Caviar series by Azerbaijani artist and designer Heydar Amir.

Inspired in part by the monumental monochrome wooden sculptures of American artist Louise Nevelson, Amir transforms a conventional furniture piece into a sculptural composition.

The work incorporates numerous small, matte-black spherical elements resembling caviar, which appear to emerge from and reshape the furniture's rigid geometric structure.

The contrast between the traditional form of the chest of drawers and the flowing arrangement of the spheres creates a surrealist visual effect.

Amir's artistic practice centres on transforming old, forgotten or conventional furniture into collectible design objects through a process he describes as radical upcycling.

This approach involves creatively reinterpreting existing materials and objects, giving them new artistic functions and extending their useful life.

By presenting Rasulov's environmentally focused paintings alongside Amir's sculptural furniture design, the exhibition brings together different artistic approaches addressing the relationship between nature, material resources and contemporary creativity.

Long Live, Caspian! will be open to visitors at the OTAQ gallery in Icherisheher until January 15, 2027.