Adil Aubekerov
Adil Aubekerov was born in 1991. He studied at the Astrakhan Institute of Engineering and Construction with a focus on architecture. He has participated in exhibitions in Russia and Europe, in various art fairs, and in the 7th Moscow International Biennale of Young Art. Aubekerov works with the idea of spontaneity in his art, with regard to both the materials he uses in his paintings and the gestures he uses to transform the materials. Closely monitoring his internal state, the artist makes the line one of his main characters. In Aubekerov’s paintings, graphic works, and performances, the line is a sentient form.
Taking the surrealists’ method of automatic writing as his foundation, Aubekerov paints without preliminary sketches, striving for maximum directness and non-objectification of the emotional affect. He finds no less common ground with abstract expressionism, as his paintings often transform into a spectacle. In his performances dedicated to the interaction between the painting material and the painted surface, the artist uses his own body as a “direct expression conductor”, using his hands to paint without the intermediary of a brush. His touching of the canvas and the fingerprints left in the paint recall the prehistoric cave paintings at Gargas and shamanic practices.
For Aubekerov, the surface of the canvas does not tolerate emptiness, and must be completely filled. With no beginning and no end, his lines multiply, weaving into complex patterns similar to those made by plants or bacteria. The movements of his hand along the surface become complex non-linear journeys for the viewer’s eye in space. The images fill as much of the surface as possible, like flora. In creating these structures, the artist manipulates an enormous number of visual quotes – from Paul Klee and Henri Matisse to Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and even M. C. Escher – and combines the complicated methods of structuring picture space used by all of these artists with oriental ornamentation, his own eastern identity.
Adil Aubekerov’s world of images is perpetually in a state of becoming, metamorphosis. It is like an imaginary zero point, from which figures and things have yet to emerge. It is a “liquid” life of streams and puddles of color on the canvas surface. Sometimes figures of creatures or people arise amidst these blends, swirls, and protuberances, but only to again dissipate and change shape.
Aubekerov’s squalls are like using a mask as a means of expression through an image. “I see masks as evidence of a person... a cast of you taken at one moment in time,” says the artist. In just such a cast of himself, which for him is what painting is, Aubekerov manifests an individual utopia of universal harmonization.
