IADA continues its publication series about the next-generation art scene of Central Asia. Lyazzat Khanim is a young artist working in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan. Her painting blurs the boundaries between the photographic and pictorial, reflecting the hyper-realistic space of universal glossy images based on the artist’s archive. Her practice is also largely connected to the internet and social media, as Lyazzat admits, her work is fully completed when it is photographed again and found online.

The beginning and artistic search

I started consciously practicing art in 2019. For a long time, I studied design, but didn’t feel inner satisfaction and at some point felt emotional burnout. It’s important to me to feel that fulfillment. The state of emptiness led me to thoughts of what would I really like to do? If it wasn't necessary to think about things like accomplishments, social approval, and completely disconnect from the environment, withdraw into yourself. When I had such a mental experiment, I realized that I sincerely want to paint. This question helped me to find my direction.

Thinking between art and design

Design for me is about functionality. It is a certain way of thinking where the task is to improve the quality of life. I worked in the direction of sustainability and as a designer, I was thinking more about what surrounds me, but as an artist, I feel like the surrounding reality ceases to exist. In art, I don’t feel this responsibility to the global challenges that design puts forward, and the artistic practice for me is like meditation and a journey to myself.

About the first work “no step no grab”

My first artwork was “no step no grab”. When I was in a depressed state I took a lot of pictures and photos and I liked to crop them to extract a certain frame from the surrounding world like a piece of furniture, or something else. Pictures taken during that year, as an archive of my diary, became the basis for paintings. In 2018 I flew a lot and took window seats. It happened so that my seat was always overlooking the wing and turbine. This image was imprinted on my mind as one of the main memories of that year, and this is how I had it on canvas.

On photography

I always work intuitively, it's like an inner voice. Only after working on a painting, did I start finding different interpretations. Before university, I studied at an art school and when I returned to painting, I immediately realized that I didn't want to do an academic paintings like landscapes or other traditional subjects. At that time I knew nothing about contemporary art as I was completely immersed in design. I went through the genres and for a long time considered what exactly I wanted to paint. At some point, I realized that I really like my photographs, that they reflect my views, and that I want to paint without inventing something new in my head. I also realized that this is the most comfortable medium for me. Unlike painting from nature, there is no time limit in painting from a photo. I just take out my phone, take a few pictures and choose the best shot, which becomes the basis for the painting. I mainly paint in small formats, one work takes from one week to a month, depending on the complexity. The most time-consuming work that I have created so far is called “Antidepressants”. I painted it for about a year.

About studying at Parsons School of Design (New York)

Studying at Parsons had a big impact on me in terms of sense of form. In the first year, I realized that I like the philosophy of minimalism and from the beginning, till the end of my studies I worked in this direction. We studied digital arts, and made films, our practice was cross-disciplinary and it expanded my thinking, I tried a little of everything and found my own style. I am very grateful to my teachers at Parsons, who influenced me not only as a designer but also as an artist. We visited various museums and exhibitions and wrote essays. In the first year of our studies, we had the subject of contemporary art which introduced me to such discipline.

Image search

In the selection of images, I like the universality. I depict objects that can be found anywhere in the world. Any person, regardless of the country or culture, can easily imagine themselves in the space of my paintings. Some viewers read pictures as a text, looking for a message, while others simply get the visual pleasure so-called “visual orgasm”. Whereas I transfer the image to the canvas in order to understand what is behind it and why it hooked me. The hyperrealistic aspect is not the main thing for me. It is more important to give the image an aura.

On new approaches

Sometimes I work with staged photography, by creating a concept. For example, a series of works I created for the exhibition called “Safety Instinct”. The exhibition opened immediately after the lockdown and its main idea was around the topics of health and immunity, something that gives hope during the coronavirus pandemic. I bought some lemons and found a safes store, where I took a couple of pictures that were eventually transferred onto canvas. It was one of the first works created in a way that is different from my usual practice. Most of the time everything happens quite naturally, I just catch the moment.

The square format and the impact of social media

I try not to put myself in certain frames, but almost all of my paintings are made in a square format, like on Instagram I think that unites the composition and frames the work in a special way. I love the process of bringing images back into digital reality. I guess my work is fully completed at the moment when I take pictures and post them on Instagram. My artistic process is the cycle of photographing, painting, photographing, and posting. I like the idea of ​​recycling an image and the sense of uncertainty between photography and painting.