Central Asian art takes centre stage

CENTRAL Asia took the spotlight at the art exhibition New Silk Roads: Painting Beyond Borders which runs until Monday at the Ion Art Gallery, Ion Orchard. For the first time, the works of five modern and contemporary artists from the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have been brought together for a group exhibition in Singapore.

The works centre on the theme of the Silk Road, that great network of overland and maritime highways connecting East Asia and Europe via Central Asia since antiquity. The artists include the eminent Fayzulla Akhmadaliev, whose evocative paintings of mythical scenes are collected by museums, and Murat Hojakuliyev, whose lyrical abstracts have been featured in biennales.

The other artists are Kadirov Gafur Kolbovich and Leyla Mahat, as well as Filip Gudovic, a Serbia-born Singapore-based abstractionist who graduated from Lasalle College of the Arts.