The painter's look

One road

The exhibition, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the artist, brings together works created from 1989 to 2026. For the first time, works of almost four decades are found in one space, allowing you to see the creative path of Kadyrzhan Khairulin – the search for different years, the change and development of his artistic language.

The exhibition presents works of different periods - from subject and figurative painting to abstract compositions. There are about 50 canvases of impressive format and content.

The author himself admits that it is unusual to see paintings painted in different years, from the late 1980s to completely new ones. “I haven’t seen some of them in a long time. When you work, you don't think about it. Just writing. Something changes, you return to something, you leave something. Years later, all of a sudden you see that it was the same road.”.

The curator of the exhibition, art critic and “part-time” wife of the artist Asiya Khayrullina says: “The exhibition for the first time in a long time will give an opportunity to see together the works of different periods of creativity of Kadyrzhan, who rarely publishes new works, almost does not give interviews, does not strive to constantly remind himself of exhibitions and public appearances.” It may seem that the artist generally keeps away from artistic life. But that impression is misleading.”.

Bridges of events

Kadyrzhan Khairulin is a master of painting, a recognized master of art of international class, a member of professional communities of the highest category, an artist of national importance, having several solo exhibitions, published in catalogs and magazines. His works are in museum and private collections of different capitals of the world, including the National Museum of Arts of the Republic of Kazakhstan named after A. Kasteev.

Kadyrzhan Khairulin was born on October 26, 1956 in Almaty. In 1983 he graduated from the Art Faculty of the Almaty State Theatre and Art Institute. His works were exhibited at all-Union, republican and international exhibitions, creative symposiums and projects in Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the USA, Great Britain, Sweden and South Korea. Since 1989 - member of the Union of Artists of Kazakhstan.

In the 1990s, he was among those who formed a new space of Kazakh art. International projects, creative laboratories, exhibitions dedicated to contemporary art practices, cooperation with artists from Central Asia, the United States and Europe – all this was not an episode, but an important part of his biography associated with the association of artists “MOST” founded by him. And after many years of organizing the artistic environment, he, as it turned out, chose the most difficult: to once again be alone with painting.

The exhibition “Horizon of Events” by Kadyrzhan Khairulin unites works of different years, allowing to trace the gradual formation and development of his artistic language – from the recognizable object world to the complex, multilayered space of memory, time and imagination.

In Khairulin’s painting, the usual things – a chair, a house, a window, a road, a lamp – gradually free themselves from their everyday certainty and enter into new, sometimes unexpected relationships with each other. Scale and distance change, the usual logic of space is broken, and the familiar reality seems to be in a state of internal displacement. Objects cease to be just details of the surrounding world and become full participants in what is happening - carriers of memories, states and hidden meanings.

The artist does not offer the viewer a single reading. On the contrary, leaving room for ineffability, he invites you to independently establish connections between images, peer into the relationships that arise between them and gradually build your own story.

Such works as “Event Horizon”, “When the King is Sleeping”, “Melancholia”, “The Stranger”, resemble author’s cinema – not so much for its narrative, but for the principle of construction. There is no single storyline: the work consists of many episodes, objects, details and signs that gradually enter into dialogue with each other and form a single multilayered space. This is a painting that can not be captured with one glance: you want to return to it again and again, each time noticing new connections, roll-calls and meanings.

In the works of recent years, the subject increasingly fades into the background, giving way to line, color, texture and rhythm. However, this is not an abrupt transition from one artistic language to another, but its natural evolution - a successive liberation of form, in which the old motifs continue to live in a different capacity. Khairulin’s artistic language is changing, while remaining recognizable and open to further movement.

And even in this improvised mosaic of individual works, the main thing appears: the diversity of the artistic world of Kadyrzhan Khairulin, in which different periods, images and techniques do not contradict each other, but form a single, constantly changing system.

And one of the connecting lines, an object that is found - including quite suddenly in the form of a shadow or a light opening in many of the artist's works - is a chair. This is a personal observation, but the eye caught on to this plot and compositional “character”.

Chair

In the works of Kadyrzhan Khairulin, the chair as the main character is, for example, on the canvas “Memory”, or in the work “Premonition”, or in the series “Hangover”. There is one in the painting “Place”. On many canvases, the chair performs in a solo part. But there is also a chair that escapes or falls out in the form of a shadow or a light opening. It seemed curious: why is the chair found in the works of the master so often?

The author himself initially replied, “I didn’t think about it.” It wasn't a big idea. This is the first chair written many years ago. He's got a hat. There's a chair with a bottle. Eat with pumpkin ...”.

And yet! The chair tells us something.

- Perhaps it is an object that is associated with a person. Even if we do not see a person, he was, or will come, or sit on a chair, or will place something on it, or rearrange it. Probably, yes, it's an object of presence.

Observation horizon

I was particularly interested in another artist’s work. On it, as if in a 3D image, there is a lot of symbolism, magic, traditions, the connection of nature and man. In the foreground, we see white cloth patches that are usually tied to a tree in places of power, making hidden desires. Also immediately read and the image of the horse as a symbol of nomads, and between the horse and the patches – a curious ornament, similar to hooves.

- I was in the open air in Kyrgyzstan, and according to the memories of this trip, such work developed, explains Kadyrzhan Khairulin. - Yes, it really has many symbols from the life of steppe nomads. Hooves were once a measure of weight, and it is also a Turkic ornament, talking about road, movement, endurance and life experience. Also, this ornament, but it is not verbatim for me, means a long journey, overcoming obstacles and fortitude, a connection with the animal world - camels and horses, which was in the life of the nomads. Traces of these animals have always had a deep meaning.

We have to see!

- It was an amazing retrospective exhibition for us. It seemed that a number of works created under different approaches and at different times would be combined, but suddenly a dialogue began between them. The exposition turned out to be lively, with its own special language and images, and it calls to feel the subtle world of the artist, to see how the horizons of his thoughts, events, creativity change and expand, Asiya Khayrullina emphasizes.

The colorful catalog for the 70th anniversary of the master was prepared by Rita Osipova and Albina Abuzarova, and the well-known art critic Bayan Barmankulova wrote an abstract for the exhibition, noting the most important for connoisseurs of the beautiful: Khairulin works in the amplitude of nature - abstraction, color plus object. Creates paintings, decorative and compositions in the spirit of Dadaism.

He used to be attracted to a portrait. Now a still life, where the subject appears as such. But if you look at him for a long time, he can become a subject from the object. And if you put another object next to you, then there will be a plot, even a story that you want to unravel. The painting that gave the name of the exhibition, “Event Horizon” is an image of the world in the present time. Blue sky with clouds in the corner. The rest is the spinning of cars along the highways of the city, where in the squares of the streets are clamped grass, an apple, a figure of a naked woman, fragments of the artist’s still lifes, as well as a curved clock dial. It's bustling.

In whatever style the picture was created, the goal of the artist is the meanings lying on the surface and under the cover. “Event Horizon” is a painting that doesn’t have to be solved. It is rather necessary to enter and linger a little longer than planned.”.

Everything said and written is true. Come and see for yourself. The exhibition will run until October 11, 2026.