Exhibition of Azerbaijani artist Aida Mahmudova to open in Switzerland
By Nigar Orujova
The Barbarian Art Gallery and curator Sandra Nedvetskaia are presenting a solo show of young Azerbaijani artist Aida Mahmudova in Zurich on June 8.
In her first exhibition in Switzerland, titled "Internal Peace", Mahmudova presents impressive narrative works, directly inspired by the Azerbaijani history and related to the artist`s personal experience and identity, illustrating her considerations in terms of memory and nostalgia.
The exhibition will be open to visitors from June 9 until July 15 at Barbarian Art Gallery (LIMMATSTRASSE 275 CH-8005).
Aida Mahmudova`s artwork delves into the emotive facets of 'longing' - specifically, the longing for the memory of a place, rather than for the place itself. Simultaneously the artist meditates on how memory is tied to the debris of the past.
Her paintings and accumulations present history as a collection of mements which appear fragmented and partial, and are accessible only through the mediation of personal perceptions and emotional responses.
By focusing on an individual perspective within a larger, historical narration, the compositions redress how history is perceived and memory evolves.
The situations Aida depicts are retrieved scenes, eyewitness of places and situations, which have undergone a drastic change. Through her work the artist invites the viewers to participate in the experience of remembering.
"My art is a constant and continued investigation of my memory, as it informs my identity," she says. "The touchstone of this search and the main source of my inspiration are the forgotten, untouched and undeveloped locations in Azerbaijan. Our physical world is shifting at a pace so rapid that our memories are frequently blurred, and our 'remembered' past is often forgotten or altered by our subconsciousness. This confuses our identity. These unmodernized locales function as a 'missing link'. They are a fulcrum that connects the actual past with the remembered past. They are the fabric of my identity - the fiction and the reality, the memory and the present moment, the subconscious and the conscious. Physically experiencing the concrete reality of these sites allows me to re-experience and re-visit the places of my past. These encounters help me to re-capture the past within the present moment. The tangible relics of Azerbaijan`s past are timeless and transient, universal and specific, and they are the fabric I use to give material form to the intangible memories that inform my present identity and my art."
Mahmudova's paintings are composed of muted hues. The depicted scenes are shrouded in a hazy mist, which combines real and reminiscent sites from old Baku and the Absheron Peninsula. The accumulations are built from fragments of half-remembered moments of the past.
Through installations the artist attempts to capture what cannot be completely recalled. She presents visual and experiential meditation on the spatial and temporal labyrinth of time.
This retrospection is locally based in Mahmudova's native Azerbaijan; nonetheless it unfolds further recollections related to the artist`s experience in foreign lands. The result is the expression of a sense of longing for a memory that has been evolved and layered over time.
In an era of rampant technological and urban development, as well as mass globalization and migration, Mahmudova aims to illustrate how nostalgia can no longer refer to a specific geographical location or to a specific context and how it embraces reminiscent sensations, sensual perceptions, smells, sounds, which appear like debris of a past life.
31 year-old Aida Mahmudova graduated Fine Art from the Central Saint Martin`s College of Art and Design in London. She works with different media, including painting, photography and installation.
Mahmudova is also the organizer and founder of Yarat Contemporary Art Space in Baku, a non-governmental organization which aims to support and develop modern Azerbaijani art nationally and abroad.
Mahmudova's artwork has been shown at major exhibitions in Europe, in venues such as the Maxxi museum in Rome, Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow and Philips de Pury & Company in London.