THE FAMILIAR STRANGER

The "Scent of a Woman" is a reference to the Hollywood remake by Martin Brest, which made drawing on the version of the same name by the Italian director Dino Risi based on the novel "Darkness and Honey"[Il Buio e il Miele] by Giovanni Arpino. The film version describes a woman's intuitive feeling about the boundless world that she can give a man. This is a real man striving to understand this world and not appropriate it, but to grasp it. And in grasping it, to open himself up time and again, moving towards the line of the horizon as if towards a symbol of infinity. Captain Fausto, the protagonist in the Italian film version, tells the cadet Cicio: "A woman is the real motherland of man." This is the view of Giovanni Arpino.

The "Scent of a Woman" exhibition of artists in the "Art Villa" gallery is view of young people in the 20-27 age group. They are offering their interpretation of this subject. They do not lock their works into the frame of the authors' names. This is probably a conceptual position as well, namely that everyone should give birth to his or her own interpretation of what they have seen.

Imran Mehtiyev

Sculpture.Two graceful girls' figures are sitting on the top of an odd plant that does not look very much like a tree, but is reminiscent of a volcanic eruption. Who are they? The lines are elegant and plasticity of the body movement graceful. Each of them appears to be acting individually while at the same time reflecting the essence of the other. They embody a unity of beginnings and a struggle of opposite attitudes. Isn't this what a woman's character is like - fickle, inconstant, unpredictable? What is most alluring - the beauty of the body or the peculiarities of the character?

Faxri Abbasov

Two dancing.Two figures are emerging from the air, from the expanses of passions, who have come together in this dance, as if in a skirmish, depicting the origins of man and woman. There is a man in black in the background. He is like something from hell. Possibly he is not so much a person, as a clot of dark passions that are swallowing him up. There is a woman in red in the foreground. It is an aggressive red colour, even oppressive, squeezing out the man and flooding the whole of the foreground. The woman is undoubtedly provoking her partner, plunging him to an abyss of passions, pushing him towards the line of what is forbidden. Is she Eve or Lilith [a female demon].

No holds barred.Two women's bodies, naked and semi-naked appear from a heap of advertising posters. They do not have faces. But for all that you can guess that the women are attractive. But this beauty has neither face, nor individuality nor soul. Beauty has become a commodity which has lost and is devoid of its sacramental sublimity. It is a world where everything can be bought and sold. It has no definite borders. In it everything has been eroded and is distressing like Adam's fall into sinfulness. 

Delusion.The rounded shapes of a woman's body emerge from a haze of green as if from the subconscious or from a dream. Is it a nymph? Is it a naiad? The girl is a delusion. The girl is a dream. There is a presentiment of her like an idea that is realised. In the froth of the airy fabric which hardly touches her body, she lures you, teasing you with a promise. But intuitively we understand that is only a game. It is a game of promises, a game of deception, a game of mischief. It appears that in just a second a curtain will be lowered, which will form a dividing line between us and her…

Intrigue.It seems that we know this girl. Her smile is familiar. Just like this look, the hair-like leaves and flowers, slyly tossed aside under her shock of hair. She is woven together from the colours of spring, autumn and summer. She is made up of everything that bewitches and attracts a man. She is the embodiment of the magic found in all women of her type, the mystery, the secretiveness and the mysticism. She is the embodiment of all that may give the illusion of harmony. She is the embodiment of intrigue, exciting fantasy, promising paradise on Earth. But she is the one who can break hearts, carelessly, just in passing, laughing and playfully. She is both Eve and Lilith at the same time. Possibly, this is an ideal?

Zamir Rzayev

Sculpture. A townswoman, youthful and in a hurry. She is striding towards life light-heartedly. She appears to be enjoying the experiment called "life"! But why are her eyes closed? Why isn't she looking at that life in the same light-hearted and joyful manner as she is striding through it? Her head is thrown back and here hair is flying in the wind. Coloured paper clippings are catching in her hair. They are like fragments of stars, paper garlands and other festive tinsel, creating an atmosphere of carefree festivity! What is she thinking about, the past, the present or the future? Or perhaps she simply doesn't want to look at that life, so as to avoid tormenting herself with thoughts about her own ideas. Or is she just going with the flow like everyone else. Or is she simply living for today without even thinking about tomorrow…

Sevda Kamalova

The Hat. The hat is one of man's great inventions! It keeps you warm, protects from the rain and snow and from the sun. And it can guard you against the world, if you really want to hide from it. Burying her head in her hands and capriciously pouting her red lips as if making claims on the surrounding world, the girl who is looking at us out of the window is at the same time quietly peeping at life. Yes, yes, she is definitely peeping! We can't see her eyes. We can only guess what they are like. But she is hiding her eyes from us, in the hope of hiding her true attitude to everything surrounding her. Judging from the expression on her lips, she approves of the world, but is unable to assess it in a realistic way! At the same time, while she is concealing her true feelings and thoughts, she wants the world to acknowledge her as the only girl and a unique girl, like a riddle, a secret and what is really the tops… Well then. All you have to do is take off your hat, and things can still happen for you!

Lala Huseynova

Heterochromatism. The girl is absolutely open to life and the world. Her different-coloured eyes are wide open, and her lips are slightly parted. She appears to be waiting for something that is bound to occur very soon. She is not anxious about it, nor excited either. It would appear that she is both interested and coldly curious about it. She accepts both the black and white times in her life as a natural process, as a possible way of studying herself, her possibilities in certain circumstances. She is able to accept rises and falls with equal gratitude. She will not regard mistakes and blunders as a tragedy. These are just spirit-tempering and character-forming experiences. Perhaps she is not initially intriguing, but she does have basic confidence in her own strength of will!

Arzu Mursalova

Fragments of personality.The photocollage is made up of five fragments. In the centre of the composition there is the face of a girl covered by the brim of a black hat. We can't see her eyes. The fragment below it is a drooping red rose on a long stalk, touching the skin in low-neck top above. The rose has come to mean many things among the world's symbols. The red rose is a symbol of the earthly world, of beauty, of perfection, of love, of pride, of desire, of passion and at the same time of mercy. The cult of the rose was formed in the East, going into poetry as an image of divine perfection and harmony. The fragment above the central point is the face of a girl with her eyes closed. She does not want to interact with the world. Therefore she has someone to talk to in the heavens. The fragment to the right is confirmation of this. The head is thrown back and the eyes are concentrating on the sky. But we can only see one part of the face, the right side. The left side of the face has to be sought in another part of the overall exhibit. So, what or who has disturbed the harmony of this girl's spirit? Who or what is making her reject the world, leaving for herself only the world of creation?

The fragment on the left, in which we see the girl's arms, confirms this. The left arm covers the right. The fingers of the right hand are painted with signs and symbols which you cannot see in detail. We can see them, they are definitely there. But it is impossible to interpret them, because the girl does not want that to happen, Her red rose is her secret, a secret that can only be entrusted to the sky. 

The "Scent of a Woman" is the name of the exhibition's subject. The works mentioned above are only part of it. But in the world of men and women this subject is always called for, will always make people anxious and excite them, bewitch them and tantalise them. But it will never be fully understood, because for men women are terra incognita, just as men are terra incognita for women.