Solo exhibition by Farhad Hamzaliyev “Life is a creativity”

Grand opening: October 24, 6:30 PM
Art Gallery
Organizers: Museum Center

On 24 - 30 October of 2018 55 paintings, 30 graphics and 12 ceramics will be screened within the first personal exhibition of the artist, Farhad Hamzaliyev "Life Is Creative" to be held at the Museum Center Art Gallery of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The exhibition is dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the artist.
Farhad Gamzaliyev (1953-2008) belonged to the category of creative people, for whom art is truly the only and all-consuming cause of life. New themes or old, like the world, motifs, new techniques or traditional work with a brush or a pen, forms - in clay, glass, wood ... Farhad never could get enough of everything – not enough time for creativity, not enough books (and how much more would he like to read!), not enough friends ( he would like more like-minded people around!), with whom he could endlessly discuss the problems in art, that seemed quite obvious and long-standing, such as the issues of light and color, shape and its role in space, symmetry and asymmetry ... Living in the plane of "eternal questions " in art, he even turned his lectures into a real proving ground, so that the students, showing him the next " assignment ", were always ready for some unexpected creative suggestions from their teacher.
The name of the author of the works presented in this album is fairly known to a wide audience. And not everyone knew him even among the artists. But this name means a lot for young artists, working today in the field of painting and various types of decorative and applied art, to which Farhad Gamzaliyev rendered all-round, deeply professional support, helping to get on their feet, to master the basics skills. He is also well known among young architects and designers who mastered the art of drawing and painting under his leadership at the Azerbaijan University of Architecture and Construction. Here, at the department of fine arts Farhad did not work long - about 3 years. But even today he is remembered here, and it was from here, after the classes, that he went to the studio for the last time, whence he never returned home ...
Farhad Gamzaliyev graduated from the Leningrad Higher School of Industrial Art named after V. I. Mukhina (now - the St. Petersburg State Industrial Art Academy named after A. L. Stieglitz), the famous "Mukhinku" (or "Mukhu"), in which, as everyone knows, approved by time and practice, the laws of art have never become dogma. Once (in 1876) conceived as a "school of technical drawing," that is - for the preparation of artists of decorative and applied art in the field of industry, as well as teachers of draftsmanship and drawing, here to this day, the training is provided for the artists of monumental, decorative and applied, industrial and restoration art. The curriculum at the school, aimed at the subject environment transformation, was a synthesis of artistic and technical disciplines, when students studied not only such artistic forms of creativity as, for example, majolica, xylography, porcelain painting, restoration of monuments of history and culture, monumental and decorative painting and sculpture, artistic processing of metal, ceramics and glass, but also mastered the strictly technical knowledge in the field of industrial environment, including design of interior, furniture, clothing, industrial equipment.
A native Apsheroner, Farhad Gamzaliyev. The life of artist since childhood was associated with oil. Grandfather - Gurban Guliyev - owned the oil field in Surakhani. Father - Islam Gamzaliyev - worked all his conscious life in the fields. Uncle - Musa Guliyev - for many years headed the Oil and Gas Production Department “Karadagneft”. It would seem that the dynasty is the "holy" ... Having grown first in Surakhani, then in Mardakan, Farhad, in his own way, penetrates the discreet but infinitely attractive beauty of the Apsheron nature. The sea constantly changing its shades, the sands constantly changing their shades, bright pink oleanders, intoxicating with its aroma spring iyda (earthen tree), emotionally gesticulating figs, mulberry trees opposing Apsheron winds... All this intertwined into a dense figurative fabric in the works of the artist, first of all, in his paintings.
Really seriously and at a big extent the artist begins to paint in the late 1990s: technical difficulties with the production of ceramics have affected. The close contact with such brilliant painters as Ismail Mammadov and Darwin Velibekov was very useful. The main advantage of art they saw in the independent life of means of artistic expressiveness. They were artists who saw in the form as the main factor affecting the work of art on our senses, giving it the leading role in awakening any emotions in the spectator. It is in the form of its architectonics, the interaction of planes, the inner skeleton consisting of the intersection of contours and verticals, and not in the plot, that these masters saw the strength and uniqueness of art as a kind of human activity. All this was very close to Farhad, it corresponded to his inner intentions, it was organic to his thinking as for the master of three-dimensional forms.
His picturesque works are many-sided. They belong not only to different genres, but they are executed in different manners of brushwork and represent, at times, polar artistic directions to one another, such as objective realism and geometric abstractionism, dramatic expressionism and sentimental romanticism.
The end of the 1990's - 2000's was a period of high creative activity of the artist. He engages in painting a lot and enthusiastically, but he also does not forget the lessons of Mukhinka: he experiments with glass and mirrors, with wood, metal, favorite ceramics, and all this found its way out in creating some "objects" that attracted both novelty technology, and the novelty of the interpretation of old themes ... During this same period, Farhad discovers a completely new technology for those years - computer graphics, the "Pandora's Box", which opened to artists unlimited possibilities in experiments - with color, composition, form. The system itself sometimes prompts unexpected configurations, geometric and organic shapes, shades and gradations of colors.
They say that one must live in a way so that it will not be embarrassing to die ... Every person, sooner or later, comes to reflect on what life is and what is death ...Farhad Gamzaliyev, at his age of 55, hardly thought about death. Healthy, beautiful, optimistic, full of creative plans ... He died, sitting at the easel, holding a brush ...
We are opening the creative heritage of Farhad Gamzaliyev - another page in the history of contemporary Azerbaijani art.