Personal photography exhibition of Lala Aghayeva Lambert "Shadows. Late Afternoon"

Art Gallery
Ceremonial opening: 2 February 18:00 PM
Organizer: Lala Agayeva - Lambert

On 2 february 2011 a personal exhibition of Lala Agayeva Lambert named ‘Shadows. Late Afternoon’ was held in the Art Gallery of the Museum Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan.
Professional photographers treat the work of amateurs with some disdain: as they are not artists, they choose their subjects randomly, they take whatever they see and they don't care for artistic refinement! Lala Aghayeva Lambert goes against this stereotype. She cannot boast of any special training except for a few studio lessons. But her photographs are hypnotic. You dream in reality, find yourself in the frame, taste the fizzy orange, smell the salty wave, hear the light crunch of the yellow sand under your feet and the fussing of a small lizard among the palm leaves…
She walks in nature and chooses the shot. She is in her own world here, no stranger with a camera. There is an intimacy and sincerity about her pictures often missing from those of professionals.
Lala was born in Baku into a family of doctors. Dynamic, venturesome and creative, she tried many professions in her youth: she sculpted and drew. But her father - the well-known surgeon, academician Boyukkishi Aghayev - wanted to see her follow the family tradition. The obedient daughter graduated from the Azerbaijan Medical Institute and became a doctor. However, fate interfered again. She got married to an American who took her away to the Caribbean islands.
The exhibition ‘Shadows. Late Afternoon’, displayed in the halls of the Art Gallery of the Museum Centre of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan, was Aghayeva-Lambert’s first solo exhibition. That detailed programme, consisting of 120 photographs, was a statement of her vision of the world and the possibilities of the photographic art.
Nothing in the world can be interesting without a broad outlook on life and a personal approach. The key to ‘Shadows’ is impression. Lala is excited by the idea of the moment which cannot last long... a nostalgia for the imperceptible instants of life. She stops them, these instants, and with them the power and colour of life. Lala’s days, as in the well-known Dr Seuss books, are painted in different colours. “My coloured days” - says Lala – “happen to be yellow, green and orange, and are very different, just like my moods. On a red day I am full of energy and enthusiasm. On blue days I flutter. On grey days I fall off the plinth and on black it is better not to approach me… My works, too, are painted in different colours…
‘Pink Imagination’, ‘Cobalt Glaze’, ‘Persian Blue’, ‘A Lemon Twist and Lime Sherbet’, ‘Orange Tango and Tangerine Dreams’, ‘Burnt Cinnamon’, ‘Variations on Red’ - thematically the exhibition was divided into colour series. There were several works in each series. They were not named. But in the slide-show (do not miss this!) phrasal hints such as ‘A Hot Pink Kiss’, ‘Raspberry Jam’, ‘Rhapsody in Blue Tones’ roll around. ‘The Taste of Spring’, ‘Citrus Spices’, ‘Wet Coral’, ‘Fiery Sparks’ etc. The picture seemed not only to have colour, but also taste, smell and sound. The strict prescriptions of the last century suddenly dissolve into easy game. This is felt even in the titles, for example, in the solar series: ‘The Sun is with Me’, ‘Sun, Follow Me!’ ‘Catch me’… Lala doesn't alter the film in any way, doesn't ‘Photoshop’ it, and doesn’t touch it up.
Lala is a visual poet who assembles particles of impressions: sincere, colourful, flavoursome and aromatic… She creates an image simultaneously expressive and minimalistic, like, for example, the dancing pelican from Aruba or the lizard praying for freedom. In these works she overcomes the stasis in one of the most static forms of art.
The name of the exhibition, ‘Shadows. Late Afternoon’ comes from the exotic photo-sketches created on the beach in Antigua. These were the sharpest parts of the collection. This eternity and generality in the world can also be felt in her Nardaran landscapes, which occupy an important place in the exhibition as a nostalgic note, a melody of the native land.

Chief of exhibition: Liana Vazirova – Director of Museum Center
Designer: Fakhriya Mamedova.