Fruits with ceramic 1974

Curator: First impressions? This piece is wonderfully joyous; it feels like folk art viewed through the lens of Matisse. Editor: "Fruits with Ceramic" from 1974 by Sattar Bahlulzade seems simple but the method shouts from the roof, what a complex use of layering color and drawing. The technique is far from naive. Look at the textures and details. Curator: There’s such an earnest quality to the scene; it’s as though Bahlulzade wasn’t simply depicting fruit, he was communing with it. Editor: Well, these aren’t the slick, airbrushed fruits of a commercial still life, are they? Each object declares its presence – the labor of planting, the hands that arranged them, the earth and the artisans involved. We can almost see their journey to the composition, can't we? The cloth for instance, woven locally with its bright and proud colors and even those ceramic pots. Curator: That woven cloth is singing! It brings a real sense of depth and a hint of exoticism; it's all beautifully organized with these soft rounded floral forms counterposed against angular, repetitive straight lines in the fabric. It makes me imagine the table, a real domestic interior; all imbued with meaning through the considered positioning. It brings such humanity to the picture, to me. Editor: It's an intriguing mash-up, isn’t it? The humble still life, the painting; but all mediated through textile and clay work traditions and craftsmanship of production and decoration. Even the style of drawing evokes this hand made feel. Curator: Yes! I almost feel as though this art object contains a portal, linking to Bahlulzade himself, connecting the inner world of his artistic soul to the outer world of material objects and tradition. Editor: "Fruits with Ceramic" challenges the division between artwork and artifact; it emphasizes that how objects are made changes how we understand what we think they represent. Curator: It truly reveals an artist utterly, deliciously immersed in life’s simple wonders. I like the cut of his jib. Editor: I agree, what seems familiar takes a different appearance if you just adjust the background or lighting - by creating such interesting dialogue he manages to encourage our own view of the humble object and production. A nice reminder indeed.