Jazz on Canvas
An angel mends an injured wing, a dog drinks from the moon, a red rooster blazes with life near a little house on the outskirts of a village… The themes and images of Marat Bekeyev are either engaged in peaceful dialogue or busy arguing themselves hoarse as they merge with the canvas. Woven out of contrasting paints and distemper they sound like jazz music, or the blues.
Behind a puff of cigarette smoke the artist has the look of Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong. It is hard to question him because if he doesn’t want to answer he simply appears not to hear. But he is
eloquent when he talks about his own subject or something that interests him. Here is a scattering of his words, thoughts, emotions and snatches of memory.
“When I recall my past, I realise that life is full of different events and meetings. Each period related to a city looks like the separate chapters of a book: Minsk, Aktyubinsk, Almaty, and the endless wanderings. It is astonishing how stubborn I was in my youth. I remember once I needed to take three packages of paintings from Minsk to Alma-ata. It was a long journey, from a distant district of the city all the way to the airport. To start with, I needed to get them down from the 9th floor, then drag them to the bus stop on foot, moving them in turns as if they were on a chessboard, past two metro stations, and then load them onto the bus. The bus driver kindly used his microphone to announce, ‘Dear passengers, let us help our artist comrade to get these paintings onto the bus’, and everyone got up to help. When I arrived at the airport, the paintings set off all the metal detectors, because they were so full of nails and because I looked like a gypsy, with my bright clothes and hair below my shoulders, so of course I was stopped and searched.
‘What do you have here?’
‘Paintings.’
The customs officer put his hand inside, but the canvas was still wet, so when the sleeves of his uniform jacket re-appeared they were covered in paint up to the elbow.
‘Throw away your uniform, captain; you will never wash it off…’
I have had so many adventures and bizarre experiences.
“When studying in Minsk, at the institute, everything went really well for me and the invitations to take part in exhibitions began pouring in. However, I made the decision to come back to my native city of Aktyubinsk. Nobody
could understand why I came back; the city had rotating power cuts, no foodstuffs, unemployment and was deep in the crisis of the 1990s. I locked myself in my studio and began to paint. I wanted to work all the time.
I don’t understand the current fashion of art courses that offer ‘to teach you how to paint in one hour a week’. It is simply not possible to teach painting that quickly, even when it is obvious that people really want to paint. You need to spoil hundreds of canvases before it really starts to come together for you. When I was studying I would produce about ten paintings a day after class; the guard had to turn us out of the studio at night. The next day I would decide I didn’t like my paintings; I would wipe them out and paint new ones. This is how we learnt, by ‘breaking’ ourselves, by ‘breaking’ our hands; these were the real lessons of painting.
“Fleeting topics of news don’t interest me; they don’t nourish me. I work for myself, first and foremost. I appreciate the opinion of my friends and colleagues. I try to live in my own world, in my private space of thoughts, sensations and feelings. What is the difference between a creative thinker and ordinary people? I think part of an artist’s perception (and that of writers, musicians and actors) is always some distance from his physical body. I have a series of works named ‘Light Amnesia of a Writer’ that clearly reflects this.
“Canvas has a special quality. I love coating it in paint. There is a concept about painting on canvas that demands that everything should be enhanced, that every line and dot should be brought to life. Sometimes everything depends on an idea. I can leave a part of a canvas untouched or, at other times, paint in great detail and build up the texture with layer upon layer until the canvas says, ‘This is enough’. Then I understand that I have completed it and it is time to let it go. Then again, sometimes I paint incredibly fast, finishing a painting almost in one breath.
“When I work I use about 20 brushes at the same time, because sometimes you can’t just leave your painting to go and wash the brush you’re using. Each brush has its own colour; it is like an instrument in an orchestra playing its own part. Lower layers of paint meet the upper layers; every line and mark play with each other, interact, talk, rhyme, overflow into each other, sometimes glaringly, sometimes smoothly. Sometimes they manifest themselves brightly; sometimes they are barely there, just as in jazz, symphony or in the poems of Tsvetaeva. Painting, music and poetry – they all talk to us in the same language, which is the language of creativity.
“When I was teaching, I tried to be demanding. The study of creative subjects requires discipline, just like any other subject, and as well as that, a student needs a keen desire to learn. I was very lucky to spend so long in the vibrant artistic environment of Minsk. Being students, we found our way into the studios of any artists who interested us; you couldn’t hold
us back. We visited exhibitions, performances and concerts in any city we wanted, despite the lack of money. Miraculously, we would always find what we needed, as well as the vital books that were in short supply in the pre-internet era.
“There are many themes that I return to. Figures and images may change; they wander from painting to painting: themes of journeys, angels, birds, a tower of silence. I do not want to create harsh, moralistic works. All our life is a game. I like my paintings to look like the ghost of an emotion, to ruffle the senses and touch the spirit.”
Marat Bekeyev is currently raising money for the urgent treatment needed by his son, Timur, who has been severely injured in an accident. Timur needs to travel abroad for some expensive and complicated surgery and in order to pay for this Marat Bekeyev is selling his own paintings alongside works offered by other artists who are friends and wish to help. If you are interested in buying any of these paintings or contributing directly to the fundraising effort, then please contact the artist via social networks or his website: