On October 2-16 the Art Exhibitions Directorate of the Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan held a personal exhibition of Ruzihon Jalilova, titled “The Bloom of My Land”, at the Tashkent House of Photography. The exhibition displayed about 30 paintings, which the woman-artist dedicated to her homeland.
Ruzihon Jalilova is a young artist from Fergana Valley. Any painting she creates is filled with enchanting colours, emotional elation, and every time an original content; she continuously refreshes and improves her skill.
In 1993 Jalilova graduated from painting department of the Republican Vocational Art School named after P. P. Ben’kov, and then from a restoration department of the Bekhzad Institute of Arts and Design, where her mentor was the renowned scholar and architect I. Azimov. When graduating from the Institute, Jalilova dedicated her diploma work to the problems of restoring the portal of Anau mosque (Turkmenistan). It was an uneasy task to restore a structure, of which only ruins remained after an earthquake. Additional information had to searched in legends and tales contained in manuscripts on construction. In spite of these challenges Jalilova managed to solve this seemingly impossible problem wonderfully.
While practicing architecture, she never abandoned her painting, and also enthusiastically engaged in pottery. The artist believes that these arts are interconnected, as it is the multicoloured architectural ceramics – mosaic and majolica tiles – that creates the character of oriental architecture and looks so picturesque on canvases dedicated to urban landscapes.
Gradually, painting began to occupy an increasingly large space in her artistic aspirations. In her work, the artist prefers to turn to different subjects and experiment with styles and genres. Finding ground in a particular motif or image, she tries to fill it with her own emotions and experiences, implementing them in colour, drawing expression and compositional structure.
It is quite natural that medieval architecture with its laconic and expressive forms and unique decor has become one of the sources of inspiration for Jalilova. Architectural and ornamental traditions have become one of the fundamentals in her art. Another specific feature characteristic of her works is the use of symbols and signs that imply interpretation, which introduce a special hidden meaning into the picture’s text.
For instance, her painting titled “The Archer’s Self-Portrait” (2002) was influenced by unique patterns on the portal of Anau mosque, which she used as basis for her composition. At the top of the picture we can see the portal fragment with a fabulous dragon, and underneath it – a symbolic image of the archer whose keen eye is focused on the beast’s serpentine body, a skull-cap, a bird in bright plumage, and an arrow pointing towards the dragon. The objects and details on the picture bring in an abstractly symbolic import linked with the artist’s own sentiment.
Her turning to the artistic experience of the past centuries and her ability to interpret it while giving it a contemporary voice, give her works a special national flavour and expressive ethnic originality.
Portraits created by Jalilova are quite interesting; they are distinguished by a soft lyricism, extraordinary expressiveness and poeticism. Her “Self-Portrait” reflects the typical features of contemporary Oriental girls.
The fruit of the artist’s contemplations is her landscapes where she aims to emphasize things that are most typical and characteristic of the landscape of her home country. The mountains of Shakhimardan, “Autumnal Landscape”, “Wintry Courtyard”, “The Corner of Tashkent”, etc. look beautiful as created by Jalilova. Her landscapes are always interesting in terms of colour; they represent all the richness of Uzbekistan’s nature and its charm in each of the seasons. The beauty of this land with its juicy fruits is also communicated in Jalilova’s still-life paintings saturated with bright colour effects: “Autumn”, “Pomegranates”, “Traditional Jewellery”, etc.
The woman-artist has her own special attitude towards the selection of colour range. She achieves a significant expressive power by putting together certain paints and playing with different kinds of strokes and lines.
Paintings of Ruzihon Jalilova were often displayed at art exhibitions held both in Tashkent and Fergana. The art of the young painter, inspired by the traditions of her nation, is impressive in its great vitality and emotional charge.
Dildora Umarova