Paintings Where Ancestral Symbols Come Alive: How Abdrashit Sydykhanov Transformed Kazakh Art
An exhibition of paintings by Abdrashit Sydykhanov - the renowned film artist who also created more than a hundred works of fine art - has opened at the Forte Kulanshi Art.
As part of the “Kulanshi: Learning to Read Paintings” series supported by Forte, we spoke with the artist’s daughter, Zauresh Sydykhanova, to learn how her father began incorporating ancestral symbols into his work.
“Dad began his creative path in the 1960s alongside the so-called ‘Sixtiers’. Among them were Salikhitdin Aitbayev, Shaimardan Sariev, Bulat Toguzbayev, and Makum Kisamedinov.
In 1966, at the Taras Shevchenko Art Gallery (there was no Kasteyev Museum yet), they organized a major exhibition titled ‘Young Artists of Kazakhstan’.
It was there that Dad first appeared as an easel painter, because before that — right after art school — he went straight into working in film.”