Ramziya Zinnatova, an artist from St. Petersburg, opened a solo exhibition at the Mazitov Museum in Kazan. The artist brought with her to the capital of Tatarstan over 50 unique pictures, introducing viewers to the multifaceted Tatar culture. Some of the works are in the style of painting, while others are easel graphics.
Ramziya Zinnatova was born in Kazan in 1954. In 1937 she graduated from the Kazan Art School, and in 1982 she graduated from the graphic arts department of the Repin St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. For many years Zinnatova taught at St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Philology and the Institute of Arts.
Today the artist’s works can be found in the collections of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Academy of Arts, and the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan as well as in private collections in France, Ireland, Japan, South Africa and the USA.
The artist has found herself in several genres of fine art at once, but the priority in the artist’s work is rightly considered to be graphics, and her favourite techniques are lithography and linocut. At the Kazan exhibition entitled ‘Nostalgia’, which immediately evokes certain emotions and thoughts, Ramziya Zinnatova has brought several series; each of them resonates with other paintings at the exhibition.
Thus, the series ‘Songs of Native Land’ attracts not only with inspired performance, but also with almost irreproachable form, content of images, and a special worldview. Smooth contours of figures, harmonious world of flowing lines, large planes of pure and sonorous colors, as if born from a play in national costumes, female figures that are monumental and seem weightless at the same time. The author uses ornaments and colors typical of Tatar art in embroidery, weaving, leather mosaic, costume and jewelry, immersing the viewer into the world of the Tatar village, making it possible to discover the centuries-old history of the Tatar people.
If you look closely, you will notice the details of the national way of life in costumes or household items, but what is more important, as the author notes herself, is not the ethnographic authenticity, but the lyrical, timeless beauty of eternal and universally comprehensible images. Here are memories, history, dream, and sorrow for the irretrievably lost and life-affirming belief in the immutability of the core values that are preserved in the soul of the Tatar people.
‘Kalfak’ is a series of works inspired by Tatar folk art. The painting does not depict headdress itself (kalfak), only the motifs of its ornamental decoration scattered across the plane: golden spheres, crescents and zigzags.
The exhibition can be viewed until 20 May.