Born in Baku in 1943, Artist Arif Aziz is one of the most important Azerbaijani painters of his generation. For many years, Arif Aziz has taught at the Academy in Baku and was vice-president of the Azerbaijani culture meeting Simurg as long.
In the exhibition, a chronological overview of his artistic work is presented. Great inspiration for the artist were his many study tours that have led him not only to Africa but also to Moscow and Paris, Turkey, India and many other countries around the world. Under the influence of these trips, impressive art works were created that contain a mixture of trans-cultural elements. During the beginnings of his career, Aziz worked based on the teachings of socialist realism, with his very own nuances, yet while faithful to the original and realistic in reproduction, he has evolved his own language and therefore developed as a unique feature in the Azerbaijani art.
Quite early, he mixed the image of man with the ornamentation of different architectural styles of his homeland. From this mixture, a new abstraction developed that has become the trend for many young artists of Azerbaijan.
In his paintings, Arif Aziz also documents the political-religious development of his country. When that was still part of the territory of the Soviet Union, artists were prohibited to experiment with reduction there. Only after 1991, when Azerbaijan regained its independence, art has sought its way back to an own identity. Here dance, poetry, and architecture from the Caucasian country, culturally located between East and West, amalgamate. Arif Aziz responds to this merger in an impressive way.