YARAT Centre: Aida Mahmudova, Non-Imagined Perspectives Solo Exhibition

YARAT Contemporary Art Space, a not-for-profit non-governmental contemporary art organisation in Baku, presents a solo exhibition of new works by Azerbaijani artist and founder of YARAT, Aida Mahmudova.

Across the top floor of the exhibition space, the artist has produced an entirely new body of work that builds on her exploration of material as a tool for experimentation. For the artist the process of destruction and re-creation, of building layers and tearing them apart, of mixing various materials, such as paper, clay, cement, stone and, for the first time in this show marble, becomes an exercise for material growth and emotional healing. The total installation of sculptures, resembling crumbling pillars, and monumental wall works create a feeling of a transient place, half ruined and half built, and one is reminded that entropy is an essential step of creation. For Mahmudova the process is everything and her textured works act as tokens of memory, each layer exposing a particular moment on the artist’s personal time-space continuum.

Early on in her work, Mahmudova developed a curiosity towards material, which manifested itself through experimentation with light, color and matter in her landscapes and semi-abstract canvases. As her paintings became increasingly more layered the artist expanded her practice into the three dimensional, applying the same approach to sculpture and creating environments both emotive and intense. Harmonious with the physical nature of her chosen materials and her preferred earthly palette, her deeply intuitive explorations continue to evolve across the spectrum of universal human sentiments of love, loss, memory and desire. In the artist’s own words, “this artistic process is in a way an act of tearing away at our fundamental principles, which are manmade and therefore ultimately fragile.”

This exhibition is curated by Suad Garayeva-Maleki.

About the Artist

Aida Mahmudova (b. 1982, Baku, Azerbaijan) lives and works in Baku. She graduated from Central Saint Martins, London with a degree in Fine Art in 2006. She has widely exhibited internationally, including group and solo exhibitions in Belgium, London, Rome, New York, Moscow and Baku. Selected solo exhibitions include: Can't Capture The Light, Deweer Gallery, Otegem (2017); Passing By..., Leila Heller Gallery, New York (2015); and Internal Peace, Barbarian Art Gallery, Zurich (2013). Mahmudova exhibited at the 55^th Venice Biennale in the group show Love Me, Love Me Not (2013) and in the 56th Venice Biennale as part of VITA VITALE curated by Artwise (2015).

Notes to editors:

Exhibition: Aida Mahmudova

Location: YARAT Contemporary Art Centre, National Flag Square, Bayil, AZ1003

Dates: April 1 – June 10, 2018

Preview: March 27, 2018

Exhibition opens: Tuesday through Sunday, from 12:00 – 20:00.

Admission is free

Website: www.yarat.az

Twitter: @yaratartspace  Facebook: facebook.com/Yarat.Art