The gallery of the State Academy of Arts of Turkmenistan has launched an annual competitive exhibition of fine works dedicated to the national holiday, the Day of the Horse. Traditionally, it takes place in six categories: painting, graphics, ceramics, sculpture, carpet weaving and design work. Along with students and teachers of the academy, all willing artists took part in it. The number of exhibited works is close to 400.

The exhibition was expected, they were preparing for it in advance, considering the topics of presentation of the material this time. And the gallery was full of graceful images of horses in paints, silver, bronze, ceramics, on tapestries and carpets... As always, the intrigue was determined by the anonymity of the exhibited works - instead of the author's name, there was a number under the work.

The first exhibit that hospitably greeted visitors was a very unusual monochrome carpet product depicting an almost life-size Akhal-Teke horse gracefully walking around the planet. The uniqueness of the product is that the horse is presented in volume, i.e. convex. The naturalism of the work is emphasized by the tail of a horse made of horse hair.

Lots of interesting paintings. One of the paintings shows a transparent Akhal-Teke horse, through which the rich history of the Turkmen people shines through. And this is a very accurate allegory, because until recently not a single historical event could do without a horse.

In another picture, there is a horse running with an enviable plasticity of a silvery color, the beauty of which is emphasized by a fawn horizontal plane and a dark gray vertical one.

But the thin-legged foal caresses with her mother. Nature itself blossomed with bright colors, surrounding the love and happiness of these two creatures.

An interesting graphic drawing - a girl at an easel paints a portrait of a horse, but this model has such a curious character that she can't wait to see what the little artist does there.

Two works of designers made a special impression. If you think that screws exist only to attach one plane to another, you are mistaken. It turns out that with their help you can create paintings, and embossed ones, depending on how deep the screw is screwed. And if you paint the screw head in a certain color, you can achieve the desired tone, as in working with the image of a horse's head. We learned that it took 4.5 thousand screws. Meticulous work, but the effect is magnificent!

Another design work that you cannot pass by without stopping. The charming horse is made in the style of string art, or as it is also called in the style of thread graphics. This wonderful work took 5 thousand small nails and about 1700 meters of thread. Huge cost, but the result is worth it.

At the exhibition, we met the head of the design art department, Juma Amangeldiyev, in a conversation with whom we noted that our designers are making impressive progress from exhibition to exhibition.

- Design art is young for our country, - he explained. - When the Academy of Arts was opened, design was closely connected with architecture, then it gradually moved to the industrial direction - interior for home and office and urban exterior, textiles and fashion. For 6 years of study at the academy, students go through all areas and, of course, choose for themselves what works best. In general, the fantasy of students surprises even teachers.

The exhibition presents a very large number of excellent sculptural works: “Gulbaba and a foal”, “A young lady with an umbrella accompanied by a horse”, “Frolicing horses” and others. Excellent anatomical knowledge, the transfer of elegant plasticity of movements and mild humor characterize almost all of them.

Well, the thematic carpet presented at the exhibition does not need the author's indication. According to the handwriting, almost every visitor recognizes in it the People's Artist of Turkmenistan Ad Gutlyev, who from year to year for 10 years won a prize in the carpet nomination. However, last year, luck turned away from the artist. Can he now take revenge?

This time Ada Gutlyev presented a carpet, the center of which is decorated with square patterns.

- Oguzhan had six sons, from whom four grandchildren were born, - says Ada. - Each of the grandsons of Oguzhan became the ancestor of the tribe, indicated on the carpet with a square with arrows and a bow.

But not only this legendary fact was limited by the author in his work. On the edges of the carpet, he placed ... nodular writing and told how to use it. Anyone who was far from his home or from his beloved could send a thread of yarn with conditional knots through the messenger. For example, a black thread with three knots could say: "I'll be back at night in three days," and a white thread with two knots - "Wait in two days in the daytime."

The results of the competition of creative works will be announced later. All this time, visitors to the exhibition will "choke" for the most liked exhibits and look forward to the announcement of the results of the competition.