The Museum of Fine Arts is currently exhibiting paintings and graphic works by People’s Artist of Turkmenistan Ovezmuhammed Mametnurov. The solo exhibition celebrates the 65th birthday of the well-known cultural figure, Doctor of History and director of the State Museum of the State Cultural Center.
Bringing together nearly 400 paintings produced in an array of styles and at different times, the exposition allows visitors to feel the artist’s pulsating creative energy, his emotions and love for his native country and its nature.
... The musically gifted 10-year-old boy from the village of Govshut, Kaakhka district, was admitted to the Republican Music Boarding School in Ashgabat.
Ovezmuhammed could have become a good pianist, however he was more fascinated by painting than by playing the piano.Every time when the boy met children, attending an art school, he dreamed of being among them.
Nobody knows what his life might have been like if he had not got seriously sick one day and his father had to take him home.
After completing an eight-year school, the teenage boy left for Ashgabat in the hope that his childhood dream of becoming an artist would come true.Ovezmuhammed was able to find a job as an assistant at the Opera and Ballet Theatre’s property shop.
Everyone around him drew and painted, and he tried it too. “You should apply to an art college” - his older colleagues exclaimed when they saw his drawings.In 1970 Mametnurov entered the Turkmen State College of Arts, the department of theater.
The exhibition features a series of original sketches of costumes for Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Golden Cockerel’ that were drawn at that time. A year later, after finishing the college, Ovezmuhammed Mametnurov entered Kharkov Arts and Industry Institute, where he studied design (professional designers were quite rare at that time).
Like all outstanding and creative individuals, Ovezmuhammed has non-trivial views of the world around. His associative thinking abounds with colors. When asked to share his impressions of a recent trip, the painter always starts with the description of color palettes of the place he has visited...
Ovezmuhammed Mametnurov has traveled extensively around the world.His paintings have been shown in Germany, Turkey, Finland, Iran, England, Austria, Poland, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.And yet, he sees a 1983 trip to the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) construction site as part of an agitprop group as the most important.
Together with journalist Balkan Gafurov, bagshi (folk musician) Chary Shammaev and his other fellow workers, he was sent to the north-western section of the BAM at Larba Station, where a crew of tracklayers from Turkmenistan was working.
The freezing cold weather made oil paints crumble, allowing drawing with charcoal and sanguine only.None the less, Ovezmuhammed Mametnurovich did scores of sketches.He took a keen interest in everything: vigorous and strong-willed BAM builders, construction projects, and local landscapes.
One of the sketches depicts bagshi Chary Shammaev in his half-length fur coat and hat playing to his fellow countrymen.The exhibited BAM series with a touch of light frost exudes romance and enthusiasm.
One of the celebratory exhibition’s sections is a portrait gallery. It mostly features Ovezmuhammed Mametnurovich’s nearest and dearest with a portrait of his mother standing out from the others. The woman is depicted with seemingly incompatible qualities: simplicity and dignity. Her blue dress, beautifully tied scarf and the dark green background enhance her inner beauty.
Next in line is a portrait of Yazgul eje, Ovezmuhammed Mametnurovich’s grandmother. Her emotionally expressive face shows her boundless love for her grandchildren. Looking at the elderly woman sitting so comfortably on a felt mat with a bowl of aromatic tea in her hand the viewer feels like sitting beside and listening to her stories.
By contrast, the artist presents a graphic portrait of his father in a more reserved manner, but Ovezmuhammed’s deep love is expressed in every little nuance.Strict features of the rural teacher, who devoted 55 years to his profession, show the depth of his character.
Thanks to his father, Ovezmuhammed Mametnurovich became fascinated by Ismail Shir, a folk hero and valiant warrior.Not only is Ismail best remembered for his glorious victories, but also for his remarkable diplomatic skills.
Back in the past, Ovezmuhammed Mametnurovich got an idea of painting a canonical portrait of Ismail Shir. He succeeded in finding a photograph of the legendary hero’s distant descendant Khaji Ismailov.
Khaji Ismailov was a children’s writer, who translated many works of European and Russian literature into the Turkmen language. He lost his arm in a fierce battle during the Great Patriotic War. Khaji Ismailov, who was killed in the Ashgabat earthquake, was awarded the title of People’s Writer of Turkmenistan posthumously.
Ovezmuhammed Mametnurovich painted a portrait of the writer from his photograph.He also created a canonical portrait of Ismail Shir, having entitled it Ismail Serdar from Anau’.It depicts the hero astride a fast Akhalteke horse.
When asked, “Why is Ismail Shir not portrayed as a young, well-built warrior, but as a wise man well into old age?” Ovezmuhammed Mametnurovich answered, “Because I value an apt phrase much more than a well-aimed saber stroke!”
Landscape paintings are an inseparable part of the artist’s work as well.His home village, the Kopetdag and Koytendag Mountains, the Caspian Sea with either purple-capped waves at the height of a storm or with gently lapping turquoise waves, and archeological monuments all of these are depicted so expressively that the collection devoted to the native land is unconsciously associated with a journey through wonderful and unknown parts of our home country.
Cranes’ is a very metaphorical painting and is a highly typical example of Mametnurov’s wonderfully versatile style of painting. It portrays five beautiful birds flying skyward with the vigorous flapping of their powerful wings, and a harmonious color palette of the local landscape.
Ovezmuhammed Mametnurov is a landscape, portrait, animal, marine and botanical artist, successfully working in all genres of painting. Most importantly, what captivates the viewer is the poetics of love shown in his airy brush strokes and expressive nuances.