ALMATY – Young artists recently presented “Colourful Rain,” an exhibition of paintings, graphics and art photography, in the Central Exhibition Hall, a branch of the State Kasteyev Museum.
Yasmin Magomayeva and Amir Ryskeldinov, third-grade students at the Uraz Dzhandosov Lyceum, worked throughout the year preparing for the exhibition. The tutor of their art projects, Valentina Tikhomirova, saw in the children the desire to transform the space around them with the help of colour and lines and took them under her strong wing. “Colourful Rain,” in her opinion, is a cluster of art bridges between the creativity of recognised great masters and young artists.
The organisers of the exhibition gave each guest the opportunity to be a mediator between different creative worlds, watch the co-creation of adults and children and penetrate through time and space into this wonderful echo of shapes, lines and colours. After all, the history of art from the 20th century has evidence of high appreciation of children’s creativity by famous artists. Many of them believed that children’s work was the peak of creation, which should be achieved by professionals. No wonder that the genius Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso once said, “It is necessary to spend a lot of time in order to finally become young!”
In the paintings and graphics of these young artists there is the harmony of motifs and similar vision of space and an objective world.
The children say that they experience happiness, joy and interest when they can express their feelings on canvas. That’s why their faces, birds, lady in white mask, night and even sunny side eggs in a cast-iron pan live completely independently, without any gravitation. Ryskeldinov, for example, took a bit of paint, mixed it with water and squeezed it on the canvas and these flowing threads turned into colourful rain.
Their tutors Tikhomirova and Gulnar Dzhandosova, the latter the first granddaughter of Kazakh public figure Uraz Dzhandosov and founder and director of Lyceum are adult participants in the exhibition. Dzhandosova continues the remarkable educational tradition of her family by writing and publishing life-affirming poetry. The photographs “Celestial Themes” presented at the exhibition are her contribution to the creative, innovative teaching environment where young talents are brought up. The Lyceum, founded 16 years ago, is rightly called the school of individualised tutoring and training. Its main task is to teach each student to find and discover the talent inherent in him or her.
Tikhomirova, an art critic and artist who has been working in the Kazakh education system since 1983, creates an atmosphere of freedom for children, thereby implementing her own concept of “amazing pedagogy.” She said a tutor, as a navigator in the field of culture, helps the child choose resources for development and accompanies the child in the preparation and implementation of an individual educational programme. A tutor gives no clear messages nor teaches academic skills, but just directs the child’s desire to write what he or she feels.
