Exhibition by Aida Mahmudova opens in Icherisheher as part of International Carpet Festival
Baku, May 5, AZERTAC
As part of the International Carpet Festival, an exhibition by Azerbaijani artist Aida Mahmudova has opened at the “Azerkhalcha” Carpet Gallery in Icherisheher. The exhibition embodies the artist’s contemporary approach to traditional carpet-making heritage, offering a rethinking of material, form, and spatial concepts.
At its core are works from the “Elysium” series (2024–2025), developed in collaboration with women artisans from Nardaran in Baku, as well as the Shamkir and Guba regions. Each of the three 150x200 cm carpets combines technical mastery with artistic refinement, preserving traditional Azerbaijani compositional principles while reinterpreting them in a contemporary way. Aida Mahmudova emphasizes the expressive power of the surface, shifting from classical depth to a flat visual language, and, through material experimentation, transforms the carpet into a spatial, perceptual art object focused on texture, layering, and surface form.
The exhibition also features “Landscape” (2015), a painting from Aida Mahmudova’s series of the same name. The work is built up through dense layers of paint and various material interventions, creating a shift between abstract and landscape elements. The composition offers no fixed viewpoint, encouraging a more attentive and immersive experience. The presentation reflects the organic fusion of tradition and modernity in the artist’s practice and highlights new expressive possibilities for Azerbaijani carpet art within contemporary art.
The exhibition concluded on May 3 with a public meeting with Aida Mahmudova, moderated by art historian Asmar Babayeva.
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