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Yusif Mirza - An Artist For All Time
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| By Ian Peart and Saadat Babayeva |
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An Aladdin's cave of shape, colour, light (especially when the electricity is on) and, above all, zest for life - this is the experience of entering the studio of Yusif Mirza in Khagani Street. Well known from many exhibitions and almost permanently present at the Gala Gallery in Icheri Sheher, his works are already in many an expat's "private collection" as well as gracing the walls of the corporate and great.The distinctive and colourful use of images from rock-drawings of Gobustan is instantly recognisable but by no means describes the limit of his inspiration. At one visit a new "Composition" was fresh off the easel - a colourful, semi - abstract couple emotional energy crackling between them.
"The idea came from Ali & Nino", he enthused, having completed a first reading close to tears. "The clear and sympathetic description of the characters, the laconic way in which the history is written, and the symbolism of the relationships between Azeris and Georgians all combine to show the strategy of Azerbaijan in the last century. "It was inevitable that the novel's effect on Mr. Mirza would emerge in one art form or another. Stick figure paintings inspired by Gobustan lean on voluptuous nudes in the space; a yellow-lit oil lamp draws you past the rich warmth of an interior to a granny's tale of ghostly shadow; 'still lives' sit next to harlequins dabbed from spots of brightness; and the Lachin landscapes, rawly romantic, scratched in black wash or impressionistically symbolic...Although painting was his first means of expression, Yusif Mirza's restless hands will turn to any medium. He admits his youthful reaction to sculpture was dismissive, "Why leave colours?" but, typically, he had to give it a go and quickly discovered the 'beauty of form'. Helped by a catalogue of Henry Moore's sculptures he found in an archive, he instantly saw how it gave a modern context for the art of Gobustan. In the studio, heads which always lay just below the surface of coarse, natural rock are revealed by the artist's keen eye and the spare accuracy of his touch; the smooth curves and hollows pioneered by Moore also find their way into Mirza's work, as does the intrigue of more surreal semiabstacts.
If entering the studio a feast for the eyes, talking to the artist is the exercise for the brain; his work is the result of equally prolific, philosophical thought. In a recent essay he considered that sculpture may be the oldest art. Many legends have God making people from clay and this creative spirit is, Mirza believes, essential to humanity. When the sculptor handles clay, in the manner of millennia, every change in shape creates meaning. Clay is the sculptor's blank sheet and he reminds us that it was the first medium for writing; even the everyday ceramic utensils of our ancestors now tell us stories about their lives.
Thus Yusif muallim finds it impossible to consider the arts in separation; even the rocks of Gobustan, he points out, most famous for the drawing, were sometimes shaped to produce the music of the "tambourine stones". Listening to mugham sometimes helps the creative process, sometimes the music of silence works better; sculpture has given him a feel for the thickness of paint on the canvas; he reads extensively of histories and cultures and he writes, poetry as well as essays, to clarify his own ideas.His own past is reworked in many different forms, most literally in the powerful evocations of the landscapes of his youth. He was born and grew up in a small village near Lachin. It had to be abandoned when occupied in 1992 and this may explain the significance and intensity of the images of red-roofed houses; the paintings seem to encompass the whole of life in the village's struggle to hold onto the hillsides of Garabagh.
Reading through another of his short essays, understanding grows of the motifs which recur in the art. Mirza deals with the temptations of nostalgia and the heartache of the (enforced) separation from his origins. He recalls through all the senses; evoking the yellow light and the smell of oil lamps, the mixed carpet dyes, the hard stone walls and tracks, the everyday sounds... These memories he compares to those grannies' tales; fascinating, but containing a sense of mystery in their vaguenesses. Beginning a contemplation of the nature of time, he warns of the danger of becoming locked in the past, when time can then stop. If the beauty of the past can be used in new ways then the joy of creation overcomes sadness. The process of taking the beauty of yesterday to make a better tomorrow is always apparent in a Mirza painting or sculpture.
Yusif muallim says he had no particular training in art at school, and he was the first artist in the family, but always liked drawing and painting.
His first published picture, after several unsuccessful attempts, was a landscape in a Pioneer magazine. His father was the head of a "kolkhoz" and the family supported their son's need for artist's materials. He left the village at 17 to train for five years at the Azerbaijan Pedagogical Institute in Baku. " I'm a teacher" he smiles enigmatically, but on returning to Lachin in 1981 he worked as a teacher for only a short period. He spent more time at the Lachin National Theatre as a set designer. It was interesting to this westerner that in quite a modest town he recalled a 500-seater theatre in the cultural centre, alongside a museum. There were frequent events: recitations and mugham concerts as well as plays like "Aesop" and Azeri classical theatre. Of his set designs he remembers an early use of the "buta" fire symbol for an evening of "Bayati Akhsham".
By 1985 Mirza had moved back to look for full-time work in Baku, finding it as a book illustrator in the government publishing house in Ganjlik. As the life became more difficult for his family, after fighting broke out in 1988, he began to ferry medicines and supplies back to Lachin. Finally the situation became unbearable and the family moved to join him in 1992; some relatives and friends didn't make it and were lost to him.Always intellectually curious - during the Soviet are he had listened to Azadlig radio and Voice of America to broaden his understanding of the world - the experiences of independence and war spurred him on to study the history of Azerbaijan. Referring back to the first period of independence he pays tribute to the artists involved with Jalil Mammadguluzade in the "Molla Nasraddin" magazine, but regrets that their satire was unable to awaken people fully to the dangers in store.He relishes the freedom of the current era, the dead hand of state prescription of taste has gone and it's possible to exchange ideas across state borders. Is it coincidence that as Thor Heyerdahl has drawn links between Gobustan and the people of the Norse lands, so Mirza illustrated the CD of Azeri music produced by Norwegian group Skrunk?
Of course problems remain, and they are not underestimated. "The situation now is very difficult", he concedes, "there is a lot of potential but little support, there's no money." He is worried that there is little understanding of the role of art; he discerns a decline in coverage by newspapers of the plastic arts, even though better work is being produced currently than in literature, theatre or the cinema. For him, the arts should feature as strongly in education as the economic and political sciences if there are to be imaginative responses to the problems of the day. It's of great concern that few politicians of any persuasion have the time to be among the people at exhibitions and there seems to be decline in people's willingness to read widely.
So, could Yusif Mirza take a different road? " I was born to be an artist, if not a painter then perhaps I could have been a singer - mugham, of course!" for his baby daughter he would probably counsel against a life in art, " It's tough way for a woman". Perhaps so, one wonders, but if she decides that's the way for her... well, she is her father's daughter.Those who haven't yet walked the timeless tracks of memory and aspiration with this invigorating and versatile artist may have an early opportunity to catch up. As the magazine went to press there was talk of a major exhibition this summer featuring both sculpture and paintings, maybe in the Baku Arts Centre - watch that space.
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