28 Sep - 27 Oct 14
“To become truly immortal, a work of art must
escape all human limits: logic and common sense
will only interfere".
Corco de Kiriko
THE ISLAND / Beyond the limits of visible / by Farah Piriyeva
Creativity of subtle and slightly mysterious artist Rashad Babayev does not forbear a direct talk. Masterfully possessing the language of the non-figurative art and without attaching great importance to household details, the artist aspires achieving rather intuitive comprehension of the whole and his pieces are distinguished with timelessness, fancy pointlessness and surprising simplicity. Great Suzuki said that it is possible to construct the house without any drawing, it is quite sufficient to go into “Mushin” state – conscious plunging into sub-consciousness.
The exhibition is metaphorically called “THE ISLAND”, as if, it plunges a spectator into this world of Zen mysticism. It seems that in his works Rashad Babayev is in constant contact with eternity.
Generating his own reality and going into the world of illusions, Rashad Babayev shapes his thoughts and fills them with energy. Broad strokes of several colored spots, contrasting between each other, are applied by fan in Hokku composition on outlined monochrome picture by means of ink. Light, transparent figure in kimono is sitting on a floor; his stretched right hand, as if he draws invisible calligraphically composed hieroglyphs. The exotic portrait of the Hokku poet is laconic, as well, as tercet itself. He expresses not actions, but state of mind, all polychrome of the poet's world. Hokku is tiny by size, but the scale of its thought is great.
Spontaneous application of paints and half-abstract forms, generated by imaginations and dreams of the colorist, transfers something mysterious and radiate internal light. In his work “Night”, the emerald and green colored field, hovering in space, reminds reflection in water of a huge animal in inverted retrospect. In contrary, in composition “Silence”, where ultra-black triangle vigorously dissects the left top corner, intruding into primary, pale blue color, the author reproduces a space metaphor, preserving cleanliness of two sources – shape and color. And Rashad states: “Sometimes, one is tempted to find solution just by two-three strokes and not to release his full arsenal of colors”.
The Orient's lyric is, quite often, associated with mysticism of Sufi meditations in his pieces. In subtle pathetic work the White Figure, drawn in spicy – Oriental spirit, the Dervish, leaning on his staff and rushing towards the horizon, delivers a message to the future generation – wisdom, similarly to wandering ascetics doing in the process of centuries. The artist garmented him in white attire, similarly to Murid, who had to start, shortly, his hypnotic dance, rotating around his axis in meditation, releasing his mind from time and space.
Thanks to saucy manner of color combinations, luminescence of paints, deformations (such works, as “Light in the Cinema”, “Sad”, “Caesar”, “Light”) the internal tension is perceived in Rashad Babayev's large scale pieces. His creativity justifies, that genuine reality is reality of consciousness. Taking origin from Latin work abstractus (abstracted), the word abstracted means also, as separated or isolated. The island, presented by Rashad Babayev, may be anything: the internal world of the artist himself, is in constant search of metaphysic symbols; isolation and seclusion of human spirit or non-imaginable open spaces of our sub-consciousness. The island is a symbol of solitude and detachment. However, the English poet John Donne said: “There is no person, who would be, as an island by himself, each human being is a part of a continent, is a part of a land”. That is why Rashad Babayev's expressionism, is an application to each of us and to the whole society at large.