IF AN ARTIST IS A LITTLE BIT PROVOCATIVE

Anatoliy Buzayev. His art is a mirror of time. Artist. Person. Bakuvian. In the first week of May, the Moscow painter was a guest of his native Baku with a personal exhibition of works Conflict/Perestroika. Buzayev graduated from Azim Azimzada Art School, and since 1991 he has been living and working in Moscow, although, in fact, he remains a Bakuvian. The list of works brought to Baku includes those that reflect the artist's heartfelt attachment to the places of his childhood and youth. And they fell on days when everything was for everyone and ideals were composed for the motto of the Three Musketeers: "One for all and all for one." Romantics of the 1960s! They brought a lot to the art of painting. They achieved a lot. This generation retained their optimistic infectiousness for all their life, which allows them to create, live and surprise without losing heart!

For some reason, the field in which the artist is working has been identified by journalists as avant-garde impressionism. But in the opinion of the layman, it is rather conceptual art. The works presented at the exhibition in Baku have no titles. And that's good because the artist makes us his coauthors. Let everyone who looks at his works have their own interpretation of what they see and their own title because the title of a work reflects its basic idea.

"House"

The painting depicts a narrow street in Icarisahar. It seems that if you stretch out your hand, you fingers will touch a warm plastered wall. It seems that the picture looks different than yesterday. One wants to name this work briefly in a word - "House". A place where you can always go back. A place where you are always welcome whenever you return. A place where you always feel confident and relaxed because the house will always protect and shield you from harm.

"The Beginning"

You look at this work for a very long time. I recall the story of a woman and her young grandmother Musya. She arrived in Baku in 1917. And she was a perfect beauty! A young girl student, who graduated from Smolniy Girls' Institute recently - she spoke fluent French, was able to bake buns from Viennese pastry and cook soup from crayfish. Her mother made her marry a commissary. So she had a family. A family that put down its roots in Baku soil and gave rise to a new family. Musya and Shah. Two thin figures in the Baku wind. They are so similar to my fantasy about them! About the time when they were young and happy, and everything was still to come: life in South Azerbaijan, the birth of daughters, her service for Bagirov (by the pre-revolutionary habit, she referred to her job as service!). Shah's exile. But all this would happen later. And now they are in the Baku wind. He is like a cadet and she is like a young lady in love! And they know nothing about their future yet. The two angels at their feet are sad. They know all the secrets of the future!

"Anticipation of the muse"

Which artist does not dream of having a muse? A dream girl, a mirage girl. She's somewhere here, very close. As a concept, she seems close, but she always eludes! He does not see her yet. But the space around him feels her! She has no clearly defined facial features yet. But her soul is already guessed in the obliquity of open eyes. Peace and also the promise of the joy of creation flow from there.

"Time of change"

A time of change bursts into the world of peace and happiness. A knife swipes through the nerves, the heart, the body and the veins. And one can remember a line from a song by Viktor Tsoy: "Change! We are waiting for change!" Now, it seems, they did not expect it. The human body is in the space of chaos and anxiety. He has no face, no name. He is alone against a hostile world. And only the dividing line in the form of a blood artery protects him from the frenetic vibration of the world that has lost stable certainty. And this line will forever divide the life of the author into "before" and "after". The perestroika of the 1980s went like a demarcation line through the hearts, lives and destinies of a vast country called the Soviet Union. A conflict with public attitudes. A conflict with oneself. A painful process of social adjustment. And above all, of yourself.

"Dialogue with the subconscious"

Man is a mystery of nature. He can play with his subconscious forever inventing new tricks for fun with his own conscience. The problem is about the choice. It is like in a Russian fairy tale: go left, right or straight? The world is full of information! How does a person choose something to rely on: with his mind or heart? Information wars today are able to "swallow" people subjecting their brain to well-thought out treatment! How to avoid becoming a victim of someone else's mental games and how to save yourself? You just need to avoid rash decisions! You just need to "hold" your brain on the tip of your forefinger and look at the situation from the side! The world of information is capable of absorbing anyone! It can revive and destroy. What will be instilled into man's subconscious: what will transform the earth into a blooming garden tomorrow or what will turn it into ashes? And what drives a person: consciousness or subconscious? What hangs in the balance? Conflict with oneself. Choice. Reorganization of consciousness.

"Cosmos"

In the very middle of the picture there is a person's face. Man's face. This is the cosmos. He looks sadly and strictly on the Earth from above. And below is the madding crowd of people. From century to century. What has changed? The multicoloured strips of being are laid as seedbeds on the field of life. In smooth wide rows. Above, the upper part of the polyhedron (symbol) lies on the field so that under its influence, the row splits into thin components. Threads. Monocolours disintegrate into a multiplicity of other colours. Why? Symbol as a link and as evidence of human transition to a higher level of consciousness? The artist does not want to reveal this symbol to us entirely, but I think that it is part of the octahedron. This is the Octagon. A symbolic sign that has the following values: the four sides of the world and four intermediate directions; is called "eight winds" in a variety of traditions and represents a symbol of universality; it means restoration, renewal, rebirth and transition. This is the boundary of the grasped divine world and man's highest achievement on the path to divinity. Is humanity in the process of transition to a new energy level? And again - the restructuring of consciousness. The creation of new energy vibrations...

"We"

The whimsical world of the future. A world of man. And man himself. His physical perfection. But behind him - in the second and third background, we are given his inner, spiritual essence. Man is red. Man is blue. These are the phantoms or if you like, energy bodies of the main physical body. Red is the colour of suffering, love and exaltation. Blue is the colour of eternity, humility, self-sacrifice and humility. As a result, man is harmonious and perfect. Man belongs to tomorrow.

The art of Anatoliy Buzayev is the author's continuous dialogue with himself and, of course, with his audience. It is a reflection about man's place in this world. His significance and importance in the system of philosophical concepts of being. The artist is of interest to contemporaries. He is needed. And that's why today his works are kept not only in the government vaults of museums in Azerbaijan and Russia, the Art Fund of Azerbaijan and in the collection of the gallery at Malaya Gruzinskaya 28 (now the Union of Painters of Russia and International Art Fund), but also in private collections in Colombia, England, Holland, Turkey, Spain, Slovakia and Germany. People at all times need those who know how to awaken the thought and alarm the heart. After all, a true artist is always a little bit provocative...