‘Myths and Journeys’ of Timur D’Vatz at Andakulova Gallery, Dubai

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Andakulova Gallery, Dubai, is presenting the artworks of Timur D’Vatz in its gallery spaces for its latest exhibition.

The inaugural of the Russian-born Uzbekistan-educated artist’s works will be held on December 1 and the exhibition will continue till March 1, 2022.

“D’Vatz is an artist bestowed with unique talent and knowledge,” says the gallery. “He is inspired by ancient history, medieval tapestries and Celtic mythology.

“His paintings also reflect a fascination with alchemy and the ideals of Pre-Raphaelites.”

This year, he won the Grand Prix at the NordArt exhibition. Based in Germany, NordArt is one of the largest exhibitions of contemporary art in Europe, representing all facets of visual arts.

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D’Vatz has won several other awards, including the Guinness Prize for First Time Exhibitor at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, the A. T. Kearney Prize, and the B.P Portrait Award at London’s National Portrait Gallery in 2002.

Noble deer, elegant horses, energetic hounds and speedy birds of prey, are frequent images in his artworks. They are considered majestic symbols of freedom, power and beauty.

Legends and symbols of early Byzantine art, medieval tapestries and stories of King Arthur, come to life in D’Vatz’s compositions. At an early stage of his career, he was influenced by Russian icon painting; he expressed the spiritual images of saints and apostles.

Their serene faces and refined hands are preserved in his works as a distinctive feature. Each figure displayed in Timur’s paintings is symbolic.

This artwork is titled Autumn.

“If the mission of Art is to transfer inner meaning, the light of the plot, comprehended through contemplation and if a painting is not just a design spot on wall, but rather a means of contact with another space, then the artist involves the viewer in the world he has created, with special energy and a certain aura,” Andakulova Gallery says.

D’Vatz was born in 1986 in Moscow. In 1983, he attended Art College in Tashkent. A beautiful complex of old buildings with a few enclosed courtyards shaded by tall trees and refreshed by fountains, it had the ambience of an inspiring little oasis in the middle of the big and busy city.

D’Vatz found it wonderful to be painting in the atmospheric art studios. Lunch breaks would be just across the street, in a little café situated above the Anhor River.

Traditional food such as pilaf, lagman and nan bread, were accompanied by the music of a mountain river, as artists talked about their current art projects and dreams about the future.

D’Vatz’s journey continued when he moved to Moscow in 1990, where he started to exhibit. He was a regular visitor to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, where he was drawn to works of antiquity. He also did extensive research on the human body in the museum library.

Five years on, he moved to London, where his education continued at the Royal Academy of Arts School.

He was the recipient of the Sir James Walker and Jack Goldhill Scholarships and while studying, began exhibiting in several art galleries.

He actively participated in London’s art world. He was commissioned by the church for an altarpiece painting in Notre Dame de France Catholic Church in London and also won a commission to paint two paintings in the Four Seasons hotel Moscow as well.

His artworks are collected by King of Bahrain and British Royal families and his artworks are displayed in the magnificent Coutances Cathedral, which is a Gothic Roman Catholic cathedral constructed from 1210 to 1274 in the town of Coutances, Normandy, France.

“The artist explores pictorial space with his stylishly constructed mis-en-scenes and the art offers a modern day take on ancient legends and re-appropriated symbols sourced from early Byzantine art and medieval tapestries,” says Natalya Andakulova, Founder of the Andakulova Gallery.

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of D’Vatz’s works is the way in which his art is inextricably linked to the world of textiles: he excels at depicting the rich fabrics of Chinese silk printing and is influenced by intricate patterns of the Nabis School.

(The School consisted of a group of young French artists active in Paris from 1888 until 1900, who played a large part in the transition from impressionism and academic art to abstract art, symbolism and the other early movements of modernism).

D’Vatz’s shapes and patterns take on a life of their own, giving a lyrical harmony to the compositions. The painter alleviates any possibility of visual heaviness or monotony by leaving elegant and refined forms to serve and to complicate the pictorial space.

The splashes of Baroque colour and elongated body shapes create a surface pattern, which communicates the decorative and abstract qualities of his works.

The insistent flatness of the image, moreover, renders the elongated figures of his protagonists - the hounds and the falcons - inseparable from their environment: they seem not so much to inhabit the space, as to merge with it.

D’Vatz spends time between his studios in Normandy and London.

Andakulova Gallery, Dubai, is a contemporary art gallery whose objective is to promote Central Asia’s contemporary visual arts.

It serves as a platform to exhibit and support emerging to mid- market contemporary artists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (or the ‘Stans’) across a variety of media.

Among its other goals is to cultivate a dialogue between Central Asia and the Middle East by re-introducing the art of the ‘Stans’ to the artistic hub of Dubai.

The gallery also wants to build relationships between artists, writers, specialists and collectors.