The tapestry from "Kelin" series

"Kelin" ("The Bride")

In visual arts, artists often employ various dramatic techniques, including paradoxical elements in content and symbolism, to reveal the narrative and visual essence of their works. In the presented artwork, the dramaturgy of portraying the main figure is built upon a well-known paradox of dual perception of the same character, object, phenomenon, or event: "to see the small within the large, and vice versa, the large within the small." In other words, the depicted image is presented to the viewer with a dual semantic interpretation: on one hand, it appears insignificantly small and trivial, while on the other hand, it attains cosmic proportions in its manifestation.

The main figure of the artwork is structured by the artist through an initially disproportionate juxtaposition of a small bride figurine and the figure of a colossal bull, which she leads on a tether from right to left. The decoratively stylized silhouette of the bull figure, resembling a mountain and occupying almost the entire composition, is filled with numerous tiers of crenelated elements. The visual geometry of these elements is visually supported by the jagged line of mountains in the space behind the bull-mountain figure. The upper part of the composition, the sky beyond the mountains, is filled with multicolored lines of "alasha," decorative and pictorial stripes characteristic of traditional Kazakh carpet patterns. At the very top of the bull-mountain, a small figure of the mythological bird Kumay sits, the guardian of the bride. According to legends, she brings good luck and simultaneously serves as the guardian of happiness and tranquility in the domestic hearth. On the right side of the composition, behind the bull-mountain figure, yurts of a small Kazakh village (aul) are depicted.

The figurative and symbolic content of the artwork is structured, as previously mentioned, through the dramatic and paradoxical technique of perception: "to see the small within the large, and vice versa, the large within the small." The small figure of the bride symbolizes her external fragility and vulnerability, while the gigantic figure of the bull symbolizes her internal "invisible" essence, universal in its scale and categories. Within it lie her character and personal qualities bestowed upon her by the Almighty from birth, parental upbringing and generational continuity rooted in the family, the camaraderie of friends and peers, the circle of relatives from both paternal and maternal lineages, and finally, the entire genealogical and genetic lineage of her kin, which she brings as a bride, forming a new family hearth.

The color palette of the artwork is locally vibrant, with a predominance of coral-red and black-brown colors.

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