Fathers tell their children old legends. Daughters and sons carry further
this precious knowledge. To their children. To their grandchildren.
The artists whose works you see today have dedicated their lives to the
art, the truth, beauty and history of their people. It’s not important whether this
story happened yesterday or hundreds or thousands of years ago.
Fragments of childhood memories from a family village, meeting friends
over Saturday lunch, impressions from epic ancient legends, meeting new
people, facial expressions of relatives - when the artist transfers this to the
canvas, all of it becomes a history of the people.

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Years of thaws, stagnations, perestroika, the creation of a new state
with a thousand-year fate - artists, pass all of it through the filters of their heart
chakras, they turn all the tipping points of public life, their experiences into
works of art. Only this way legends can be born that will serve as a source of
inspiration and a source of mental strength for future generations.

Four artists are represented in today's exhibition - Abdrashit
Sadikhanov, Sabur Mambeev, Sagyntay Alimbet and Galym Karzhasov.

Different fates, different periods, different techniques, completely
different art styles, but with a deep attachment to their roots, interest and
respect to the history of their people. Painful truthfulness and the search for
new forms and techniques in art make this exhibition an integral and
comprehensible section of the Kazakh paintings development of the previous century.

Although… the present one as well. The last time I met with Abdrashit-Aga* (he was invited to the symposium by Astana’s Union of Artists), we have already entered the new millennium. The young artists would envy the energy that came from the master. A bright representative of the “sixties”, who denies socialist realism, lives a long bright and difficult life, the art shaman who talks to the forces of nature and other worlds, and who never stops. We can make a paradigmatic film about the personality development based on his biography. He was born on the night before the family had to escape from the special services. He had a pugnacious childhood with a many-kilometer road to school through the forest. He studied at school and worked as a fireman. Then love and children came along, a job at a film studio, public recognition, exhibitions in the capitals international art. AND FAITH ... in beauty, kindness, people, God and the TRUTH. This is all Abdrashit Sadikhanov.

 

Aga* - referring to the elder respected male, in Kazakh language

 

Sabur Mambeev: “When the Great Patriotic War began, I was only 13 years old, at that time we could only imagine how our future life would turn out. We had no parents so my sister and I lived with my uncle. All of my brothers went to the front and never returned. But even in those terrible years, I had a clear vision that if I stayed alive I would paint. And it’s just what happened. It was out of question that a rural boy would ever be taken to the famous Moscow Surikov School. But even so, I was incredibly happy.” Sabur Mambeev is a frantic art fanatic. How many copies were broken? How many hopes were unfulfilled? Nevertheless... ultimately, art won... It always does. A talented child of war, who survived hunger and poverty, and who used to draw for a loaf of bread. It’s not that all unnecessary nonsense has fallen off; it couldn’t even attach itself to the endless shore of this pure soul.

Sabur-Aga is a perfectionist in everything that his hands, eyes, thoughts ever have come in touch with. He was always self-critical. “I’ve never been completely satisfied with any of my paintings. Having finished the work and later returning to examine it in the future, I always found areas that should be corrected, enhanced or excluded. I believe that this search for excellence is the most important driving force of the artist’s creativity and talent development. ” That’s the thing about Mambeev. He is harsh and tender, persistent and consistent, organized and spontaneous. My heart used to stop for a moment whenever I saw him walking, leaning on a cane with his eyes shooting lightning through the thick glasses. Being the young students we were, we wanted to be pressed into the walls, trying to become invisible. However, nothing could be hidden from the Master. In no dimension. “Do not give up! The biggest mistake is to say that something is impossible. There is no magic, only hard work. If you really like something, nothing will stop you from doing it. You should never stop the process of self-development. If you really want to become an artist, art must become your passion and obsession. Be patient and lower your self-conceit if it becomes too high. An artist is one who sees things not as they are, but as he is. And one more thing - try to enjoy it. ”... after such instructions one has no rights to make an error. There is only an immense gratitude. A gratitude for motivation, a sense of excitement, and awareness of the need for self-development. Mambeev: "To have and to develop this most important desire – means to become better than you were yesterday." It is necessary to beat out these words with gold at every art educational institution of the country.

Kabdyl-Galym Nasyrovich Karzhasov - Galym Karzhasov, he belongs to another generation of Kazakh artists. The past century has been fragmented into decades, but this was of little concern to the artists. Important things in life do not depend on the year of birth. He grew up among the woven carpets created by his mother and to the sounds of his father’s dombra* (national Kazakh instrument). Throughout his art life Galym Karzhasov was looking for new forms of artistic plastic. Like a sculptor - cutting off excess, like a weaver - weaving threads of texture, like an akyn* (music composer) - without interrupting the narrative... Galym Karzhasov will forever remain one of the most original and vivid artists in the history of Kazakhstan painting. Color is Karzhasov. Saturated, bright, bold, and defiant - like tekemet. Balanced, thoughtful, sculptural - like nature. Galym-Aga often came to our gallery. Spectacular, artistic and bright - he always made an impression from the first minutes of his appearance. To become a legend for Karzhasov, who was fighting for the right to survive in recent years, wasn’t a goal. He was initially a legend. He lived as he wrote, he wrote as he sang, he sang as he loved...

Writing about Sagyntay Alimbet is difficult and easy at the same time. Immovability of storms and the depths of mountain peaks. Incomparable and mutually exclusive concepts. Delicate images of a beloved woman and children, created with wide strokes of unexpected color schemes. The national emblem of the hometown of Aktobe and the cryptography of shamanistic rituals. Classical school and textural hooliganism. Sagyntay – Aga... a tall, handsome, saying the right things in a deep, low voice. Being a tall man, he looked at us from his height, with twinkles in his eyes… We have exhibited his work more than once, in different cities and countries where they generated a great interest.

We talked. But ... as it turned out, not deep, long and often enough. Now, observing closely the secret messages in his paintings the regret for all the missed opportunity to communicate arises, and the desire to decipher all the signs that he left us. Sagyntay Alimbet used the loving relationship of light and color as Cezan, respecting both and recognizing the rightness of both. The story of a cow, that after the death of the artist’s mother did not allow anyone to milk her, became a bright and sad legend of our gallery about the devotion of a living being to man. Encrypted patrimonial signs, ornamental dynamics of composition, landscape meditation, explosive coloristics and internal energy of portraits. His works. His stories.

 

Legends. Told by artists.

Told to artists.

Heard by us.

 

I am grateful to them for the legends. And grateful to you for your desire to understand.

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