Film portrait: Rashid Nurikeyev

Rashid Nurikeyev - one of the main representatives of the older generation of Kazakhstan's contemporary art - Rashid Nurekeev, remains an artist that is not understood by everyone. Firstly, he is rarely exhibited and most of his paintings are in private collections. Secondly, Nurekeev expects an active position from the viewer: the ability to unleash a ZIP file consisting of visual and text components compactly bound together. “Traditional painting has ceased to respond to the challenges of modern culture” - Rashid’s statement that partly explains the variety of expressive tools of his artistic practice. The artist was born in 1964 in the village of Zhusaly, near the city of Kyzylorda.

Recalling his childhood, the artist notes the role of his grandmother, who supported his ideas: she allowed him to cut out the pieces from newspapers and magazines for assemblages, and then to stick finished compositions on the walls. Whole new worlds were created: New York skyscrapers coexisted with exotic animals and intricate ornaments from other parts of the world. That is how the author’s attachment to the collage technique appeared, it can be an imitation of the latter on a large format canvas painted with acrylic: the surface seems to be assembled from several rags of different textures, although in fact, it is absolutely smooth and homogeneous.