An exhibition of contemporary art has opened in the Museum Complex's art gallery with the title "5 rooms". The name is a figure of speech. These five rooms are in actual fact five halls filled with works by five artists, artists whose artistic style, attitude and self-expression differs. The selection of the works and participants in the exhibition is by no means accidental. This is an account of the works of Libra, a recently created group of artists. 

The meaning of the word "Libra" in Latin is equilibrium, a balance or scales. The founder of the group is the well-known painter Malik Ismayilzada. Besides him, the group also includes four people - Arzu Rzayev, Anar Qambarli, Namiq Ismayilzada and Nazim Sah. Examples of similar associations have gone down in the history of painting. For example, the "Jack of Diamonds Group" (1911), headed by Pyotr Konchalovsky, consisted of 31 members. To begin with, they were also united by a common idea, namely quests for a new style and form. The Libra artists have been able "to create and maintain a balance among the five paths in their works, whereby none of the group's members submits themselves to the centrifugal force with regard to the collective, but does not at the same time suppress their comrades," it says in the press release on its creation. Moreover, this is not simply a quote. This is a fact confirmed by the opening-day of the exhibition itself.

Everyday life

Anar Qambarli is the youngest in the group. He has behind him a grammar school of the arts. The Azim Azimzada College of Art, the Academy of the Art and numerous exhibitions. His works are a hymn to ordinary, everyday life, in which there is also room for the simple fixation of the moment filled with unity with the quiet of the world ("Night in a Cafe") and a hymn to a woman, whose carefree beauty and meek soul are expressed in her look ("The Maiden").

Then there is "Month R". Two little fish are lying on the back of a yellowed, slightly crumpled piece of newspaper, covering up the news file in the newspaper column.

Esotericism

Nazim Sah. Graduated from the Azim Azimzada College of Art and the University of Culture and Arts (painting faculty). He has taken part in numerous art exhibitions. His is drawn in his ideas for esoteric quests. There are many mystical motifs ("Shaman Drinking a Spoonful of Moonlight", "The Spirit World") in his works. The artist reinterprets the link between man and the cosmos ("Between the Sky and the Earth"). He examines the variants of a possible harmonious merging of the divine spirit and the human soul ("Towards Complete Integration").

Who are we?

Arzu Rzayev. Graduated from the Azim Azimzada College of Art, the University of Culture and Arts, the faculty of painting. He has participated in many exhibitions. His subject is giant people, men and women. They have some kind of physical strength, some kind of bulk. There is the current of life with everyday cares, simple cares like life itself ("Women", "Early Moon"). There is a feeling of the inseparable link with the times, with past and the present. There is also the striving for the divine spirit, for the cosmos, which is still not providing man with an answer to the question "who are we on this Earth?" Are we guests, travellers, its owners? ("The Earth and the Sky").

The ringing silence

Namiq Ismayilzada. Finished the Bakixanov School No.84 (department of wood carving), the University of Culture and Art (department of glass and ceramics). His world is transparent and fragile. In it there is a lot of ringing silence and the harmonies of the soul's unity with the surrounding world. There is the work "Morning Songs". It is filled with so much joy and rousing life! There is so much serene joy and happiness in it! The birds, hiding away in the fluffy floweriness of the bushes, announce the joy of the coming morning. It is as if the coolness of the air on the avenues blows in your face and the sensation of the sun's rays plays on your skin" 

"Pears". It is impossible to take your eyes of these life-like fruits. It is as if they are floating in cool water and you want to take them out in order to sense the aroma of summer. 

"The City". What does the megapolis consist of? Of bad and good energy, of vehicles, houses, streets, plants, people, animals and exhaust fumes, and the haze hovering over the expanse. And also of numerous colourful interpretations. It is as if the city swims into the artist's window, stumbling upon the cherries scattered on the window-sill. For many peoples in the world cherries have their own symbolic meaning. In the East, for example, this means that person comes into the world stark naked and the Earth receives him stark naked. In Christianity, the cherry is a fruit of paradise, something good, and something gentle. For the Chinese it represents hope, youth, bravery, and even female beauty and the female beginning in nature.

The viewer decides

Malik Ismayilzada. Graduated from the Azim Azimzada College of Art, the University of Culture and Arts (faculty of graphic art). His small format works do not have names. The artist farms out his thoughts, feelings and sensations to the viewer. Let each one have his own version of the subject he presents. One of his works may be called "Gamma". The area of this picture is taken up with objects that form the components of the emotional backdrop of the life lived every day.

For example, here is a vase containing red flowers, and next to it a vessel of blue glass. A little lower down there is the head of a pelican. And even further down there are three empty chairs. They are probably waiting for someone, aren't they? A strip of even light, of the oncoming morning, in the street cafe, where the expanse, lightly scattered with the dried-up leaves of the first autumn days, awaits its customers.

And here is another work - "Thoughts". A man is sitting. We do not see his eyes, we guess what the features of his face are like. But the way he is sitting and is dressed, the relaxed position of his back, gives away the fact that he is a person immersed in thought about something very personal, something that is very dear to him, probably something sad, probably "A Woman".

She is not on the cover of a glitzy magazine. And her everyday life is the everyday life of a woman, who has a family and a job. You have to guess at her features too. The artist has not drawn them. He doesn't need to. You see, this is just an artistic generalisation, the image of our contemporary woman, a woman who does not bandy sophistries slyly, who brings up children, cooks the lunches and goes to work. And in this revelation standing for a simple, unadorned, but profound truth lies the truth of life, which wins you over and attracts you.