Bobur Ismoilov solo show 'Parasomnia'

About

The title of the exhibition suggests that the mysterious and mesmerizing visions seen in the paintings are coming from a dream state: they are glimpses of disturbances between sleep and wakefulness without connections to a specific reality. The exhibition will include the Royal Hunting painting from 2014. Assembled together, the works in this exhibition allow us to follow a thread and understand the personal and unique language of the artist.

Bobur Ismoilov (b1973) is best known in his own country and abroad for his highly decorative paintings where his allusions knit together the rich pictorial traditions of the Central Asian region where the pictorial narrative is traditionally based on the synthesis of visual culture with the philosophy and poetry.

Bobur Ismoilov emerged on the international art scene as an exemplar of a recent trend new orientalism made popular by young generation of artists coming from Central Asian region. Bobur’s new orientalist style, explores the persistent mythology of Silk Road region and frees him to dissect his lineage and ancestry in an effort to further understand the formation of his artistic identity.

Bobur’s paintings take viewers on a quirky voyage across time and space following the artist’s dreams with glimpses of reality into his secretive and surreal worlds.

The paintings blossom from within the artist and aim to reflect his own state of mind rather than the reality of the external world. His continuing search for communicative and meaningful form of expression follows an idea of pathos formulae and may be described as a range of body configurations and placements of the human form in space which communicates a definable range of mental and emotional states of the artist.

Bobur Ismoilov’s artistic background lies in theater and stage design and his paintings are often perceived as film stills or brief episodes in a theatrical narrative of some kind. His art works invite the viewer to conjecture on what has just happened and what could happen next. Bobur explores pictorial space with his stylishly constructed mis-en-scenes, attempts at humour, seeing only the exotic subjects. The painting’s surface reveal the effect of old frescoes; natural stone texture filled with warm colors, creating a sheer energy in the pictures. Bobur addresses love,the quirkiness of human relationships and humor as well as something of sadness and pain through the lenses of oriental mannerisms that are full of stylistic tricks and decorative embellishments.

Bobur’s art is very allegorical and full of personal metaphors. The subject matter is tightly connected to the artist’s own narrative, that points towards a definite meaning though characteristically without quite defining it. The artist continues to incorporate his own pictorial language and at the same time maintains the continuity of visual symbols and aesthetics associated with classical oriental miniatures. He is influenced by the dynamics of visual language in the traditional miniature painting and strives to reconcile ancient values with the particular complexities of his own storytelling.

Further, he creates memorable images rooted in the iconic imagery of his cultural inheritance with a touch of Sufi symbolism and dashes of symbolic color to convey meaning. The purpose of the metaphorical work is to engage with the cultural and aesthetic values of his homeland.