Cuadro

Aidan’s Salakhova’s latest works are brilliantly provocative, yet subtle. She often employs monotone or gold backgrounds that reference medieval "gold-ground" paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and early mosaics. Highlights from the exhibition include monolithic contrasting white marble and polished granite sculptures weighing close to a metric ton. These intricate, yet monumental works were created over extended periods, some taking up to three years to produce on site in Carrara, Italy.

The exhibition is a testament to the artist’s range, with Salakhova executing her colossal sculptures as skilfully as she does her fragile drawings and paintings. Her work combines Eastern Islamic with Western feminist influences, mirroring her Azerbaijani background and Eastern European upbringing.

She examines the feminine identity in an Islamic context, with missing elements carrying as much weight as those that are visualized. Feminine figures are delicately portrayed, with the male presence noticeably absent. At times, the female form is alluded to, but is seen only in the folds of drapery, rather than in a traditional figurative manifestation.

Her compositions are somber, as they carry the resolved and quiet strength and the weight of their subjects. Highly symbolic, Aidan Salakhova’s work plays on the capability of representative imagery to present a multitude of meanings, primary among which is women’s position within established social conventions