Time Out of Mind 

Curator: Timur Akhriev created this expressive portrait, titled "Time Out of Mind," employing acrylic paint with an impasto technique to build up the surface texture. What's your initial response? Editor: Well, first off, it's striking. The vibrant pink background immediately grabs you. But there's a calmness to the subject's closed eyes, almost meditative, that contrasts with the busyness of the surrounding shapes and colours. Is it peaceful, or unsettling? I'm not quite sure yet. Curator: It's fascinating how the composition works. The woman is centrally placed, a conventional approach for portraits, but the floating geometric forms around her disrupt that sense of formality. Her red headwrap frames her face and provides a focal point in all of this impasto paint. Editor: The geometric shapes could be interpreted in many ways. Are they thoughts? Dreams? Maybe representing the mental space that she's retreated into? The colours within those shapes – blues, purples, yellows – suggest a rich interior life. I keep coming back to this feeling of being overwhelmed yet serene at the same time. Curator: Akhriev’s artistic roots lie in the traditions of Russian Realism, yet he actively explores ways to merge them with contemporary abstraction. So, you might see "Time Out of Mind" as both a study of an individual and an exploration of color, form, and the emotional states of consciousness. Editor: I agree, and the ambiguity adds power. A critical reading might look at how women’s mental states are often pathologized, seen as "hysterical" or "unstable," and query how those kinds of interpretations impact our reading of an art piece such as this. The choice of this title may evoke this history and provide further complexity in deciphering the subject of Akhriev’s composition. Curator: Ultimately, Akhriev leaves it up to us, the viewers, to complete the narrative. I'm struck by the skill of Akhriev’s synthesis: How well he melds representation and abstraction in one striking figural statement. Editor: Exactly, and by doing that he invites us to delve into our own internal landscapes. So perhaps that initial unsettled feeling is precisely the point.