Not a single visitor is in a somber mood. Those attending the exhibition do love good jokes and appreciate Atajan Ashirov’s witty works, which are aphoristic and metaphorical. Halftones, grotesque elements and visual simplicity, the hallmarks of the artist’s style, help the viewer to fully grasp his laconic portrayals.

Since Atajan Ataevich began to draw and paint as a child, he had no difficulty choosing his way of life and profession. After school, he entered Turkmen State Art College, and later continued his education at Turkmen State University, the Russian Language and Literature Department. As a result, Atajan Ashirov’s artistic career has had a literary influence. This can explain his incredibly versatile signature style of painting.

Atajan Ataevich cannot himself explain exactly his ability to find something comical in the ordinary. His humor is mostly mild and his works make everyone, without exception, smile…

The exhibition features stands with both new and old humorous drawings alike by the artist. Many of the drawings of the past years are much liked and well remembered by visitors to exhibitions held to mark April Fool’s Day. A cartoon with the inscriptions ‘Going to Work’ and ‘Going Home after Work’ depicts a knitter who hurries to work with balls of knitting wool in her string bag, and then, goes home wearing hand-knitted clothes: a coat, a hat and a scarf …

Visitors to the artist’s exhibition are welcomed by three fairytale guards (made out of pumpkins) armed with spears and sabers. They have such stern faces that everyone who sees them starts smiling unwittingly. But then, that was the artist’s real intention.

On display are plenty of birds, in particular flying ducks, made out of pumpkins and painted in the artist’s distinctive style. The fusion of painting, handcraft and installations look fairly comical.

…One of the cartoons depicts men going down the ground-level ramp. One of them raises his hat greeting his wife, who hides a bouquet of flowers behind her back as a surprise for her husband… The other feels scared to leave the airplane and for a good reason, because his spouse waits for him with a rolling pin behind her back as punishment for his inappropriate behavior while away from home.

Another drawing on view shows a humor magazine’s optimistic editor-in-chief, who speaks to an employee, trying to calm him down: “Don’t get upset if you haven’t become a good humorist, you’ll be a satirist.”

The exhibition also showcases a particularly impressive self-portrait of the satirical artist that depicts him wearing a traditional takhiya skullcap over a European-style hat with the pencil (he has had since his childhood) behind his ear and with brushes in his pocket. The portrait bears the initials ‘AAA’ standing for Atajan Ataevich Ashirov. I will take the liberty to decode the abbreviation in a different way, trying to devise a winning formula for the career of the cheerful artist, who has an extraordinarily creative mind: Ardor–Aphorism–Avant-garde…