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Born in Azerbaijan, Alaskarzade Zemfira Niyazi fastidiously uses materials such as watercolor, watercolor pencils, dry pastels, oil, acrylic, and gouache to produce vibrant and arresting work. After successful exhibitions and features in several publications, Zemfira is recognized for her bold confident style, inspired by the ideas of impressionism in the transmission of the first emotions, impressions, and expressionism – a vivid demonstration of feelings. The main genre of her work is portraiture, where she seeks to show, through facial expressions and color, the inner beauty of a person: character, emotions, and feelings. We caught up with her to discuss her work in more detail.
How and when did you fully embrace art and design as a career path?
About a year ago I realized that art is what I want to do my whole life professionally. Since childhood, I have loved to draw and wanted to become an artist, but I happened to enter the Faculty of Chemistry. When I was in my first year, I realized that I didn’t want to study chemistry. This is how my journey began. I do not have and never had an art education, I did not enter the art university of Azerbaijan because the level of preparation in these universities is very poor, but in order to reach a high level and become a truly competent artist, I work with the contemporary Azerbaijani artist Emin Gahramanov and with the Russian artist Katya Borg.
Who have been your career influences, and why?
I was inspired by other artists, both modern and old school. The influence of expressionism and impressionism is particularly strong in my works. Emotions, feelings, colors, techniques of expressionists, and impressionists are all present in my style.
What are your preferred mediums?
I prefer watercolor, white acrylic, markers, and oil pastels. The technique I work with was made by sampling many materials. At first, it all started with a fairly hard oil pastel, where I learned to hatch with completely different colors so that it looked harmonious, then work with watercolors and watercolor pencils with little use of white acrylic. My first works were quite contrasting with straight strokes. Watercolors and pencils worked together to create a mass of strokes. I only used acrylic paint to do eyes, highlights on the lips, and some areas of the face. Then I abandoned pencils and straight strokes, adding rounder and smoother strokes that repeated the shape of the face, the acrylics became more present and it began to look harmonious, new textures were added, such as gold leaf, pearlescent paints. At this stage of my development, the works looked generally more mosaic. Also, I work in a limited color palette using 5-6 colors. As stated above, the first works were quite contrasting, but now I switched to a more monochromatic color scheme. I also like to sketch small landscapes with markers, these are not quite full-fledged works, but they give a feeling of relief after long projects. I have not yet mastered oil and acrylics in their pure form, I still have a long journey before me of finding myself in these materials.
You’re currently studying Chemistry at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Please share your experience studying at these institutes and how it has influenced your approach to art.
Studying at Moscow State University only gave me a lot of good acquaintances. The training is not very good and it takes up all of my free time. As a result, at the end of the first year, I burned out and began to develop myself as an artist. So I can say that Moscow State University indirectly influenced my decision to seriously pursue art.
What advice would you give to budding young artists starting their careers?
The very first thing that should be learned for all novice artists is that the path is thorny and there will always be much more rejections than agreements. But in no case should this discourage you. I think there is a time and place for everything, the most important thing is to constantly develop yourself (not forgetting about rest!), to look for projects, and actively participate in life in the art community. It is quite difficult to be an artist, it means constant self-development, constant search, great work, but also a chance to say something to the world with your creativity.
What do you look for in a project, and what methodology if any, do you apply in researching subject matters?
In the project, I want to develop, communicate with other contemporary artists, go into great art. As my paintings are mostly portraits, I often look for stories that touch me (mostly on YouTube) and start thinking about this topic, so the idea forms like a snowball.
What projects are you currently working on?
At the moment I am working on a series of portraits with flowers, but at the same time, I am thinking about another large project dedicated to people who are struggling with various diseases. To make my plans come true, I need a lot of time, money, and people with their stories. Hopefully, in the near future, I can show you these two projects!
For further information on Alaskarzade Zemfira Niyaz visit the Occhi Contemporary Art website or email info@occhiarts.com
Main image: “Lovers”,Zemfira Alaskarzade, Illustration on paper,30×38.
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