Baha-ud-Din Naqshband, 2010, oil, hand-woven cotton, hemp and additional media,, 252 х 164.5 cm
The exhibition New Silk Roads: Painting Beyond Borders, to be held from 21 to 27 April 2015 at the 4th Floor ION Art Gallery, ION Orchard, will be groundbreaking: for the first time in Southeast Asia fine modern and contemporary painting from the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will feature in a major show centering upon the region’s artists. Registration is required for the opening night when the guests of honour will be Mr. Zulikfi Bahurdin, Ambassador to the embassies of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Mr. Dilshod Parpiev, Charge D’ Affaires, Embassy of the Republic of Uzbekistan to Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Full details on the time-table of exhibition art talks, curator tours by ENE Founder Sally J. Clarke, and meet the artist evenings can be found here www.enecentralasianart.com
New Silk Roads: Painting Beyond Borders showcases over thirty paintings, depicting subjects ranging from metaphorical landscapes, psychological states, traditional symbols, and abstract and semi-abstract compositions to portraits. Many of these works explore subjects distinct to Central Asia, yet universal in their discussion of human experience and historical themes. Executed in styles ranging from the photo-realistic and figurative to the narrative or naïve, to the surrealistic and abstract, they highlight the sophisticated breadth and depth of post-Soviet Central Asian painting. This is art emergent from newly independent nation-states built upon older traditional societies, as they deal with the challenges and advantages of ongoing shifts in cultural, spiritual, economic and geopolitical realities.
The show will contain pieces by four Central Asians, who include cultural medalists with works belonging to national museums and international private collections. Given the eminence of the artists in their own countries many of their works to be included in New Silk Roads will be unavailable for overseas ownership in time to come as they are upgraded to the status of national treasures. Also to be presented in the exhibition are paintings by the up-and-coming Singapore-based Serbian artist Filip Gudovic, who, like a true maritime Silk Road explorer, has sojourned in Southeast Asia for over a decade and is ever open to artistic possibilities that come with adjustment to new environments.
