Page 78 - Steppe - Aigana Gali

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Windows
Windows into another world - part real, part metaphysical - these works articulate the wild, untethered spirit of
Aigana’s homeland; the fundamental, irrepressible nature of the Eurasian Steppe. And yet, she makes them in a sort of cave, inside an unremarkable building at the lower end of Kensington. Contrast: from within this dicult, condensed urban space the artist conjures works that speak of wide open, light filled vistas where the spirit roams free, uninhibited. Here is the pale light of dawn against the soft departure of night (Altyn Orda); there the throb of infrared (Nadir); and flooding a large square canvas is a vivid lake of ultramarine (Aral). Totally strange and yet strangely familiar, we recover the forgotten dream of an ancient, waterless sea..
Aigana’s ability to channel the essence of the steppe, is at once skilful and shamanic; to say she is highly trained is an understatement by western standards. Her arts education is as long and complicated as Kazakhstan’s relationship with Russia, and ultimately her talent is a testament to the assimilation of both or, more specifically, a conscious decision to take the best from both sides.
“I had to train my hands so that I could forget about them, so that I am not distracted by them. Now when I work, my process is so free, my hands can just follow the movement, and I have this capacity to give form to what I feel - something I can rely on.”
Born in Kazakhstan, much of Aigana’s childhood was spent developing her physical and artistic talents. Intense periods of training (ballet, theatre, fine art) were punctuated by moments of respite, found when driving out of the city with her family into the steppe, “every weekend we would go to nature”. Long limbed and lithe, everything about this artist is fine tuned, her sleek black hair is centrally parted and swept back into a low bun, giving arched form to the feline shape of her dark brown eyes, delicate brows and high cheekbones. Her gaze is steady and unflinching; when she is looking at you there is a sense her pupils have expanded supernaturally and she can see right through you.
“When you correlate your life with such huge empty spaces you see things dierently. In a small settlement you see the world reduced and the self as big and important; but there in the steppe it is clear you are nothing. When you live from that point, it gives you a very dierent way of thinking, you live on no one’s land, nothing belongs to you and you don’t have the same attachment to things.”