Karabakh’s Dragons, 2021, hand-woven carpet
With Faig Ahmed, the creation of a carpet becomes a militant act. Itinerary and portrait of Faig Ahmed, a creator who exhibits his “psychedelic carpets” all over the world.
Born in 1982, Faig Ahmed is an artist from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. He is internationally known for his revisiting of traditional carpets: as a result of his work, these pieces have become masterpieces of contemporary art.
Faig Ahmed does not hesitate to upset our perception of things and to create the unexpected.
“Faig Ahmed does remarkable things with rugs. He takes traditional Azerbaijani rugs, shreds them and reconstructs them to create new patterns and shapes.
His work is a kind of cultural reclamation – taking an old object of everyday use rich in history and turning it into a new object to be hung in galleries and viewed as a work of art. “
Wave function
Faig Ahmed, an innovative artist who breaks the codes.
Fascinated by ancient languages such as Sanskrit and Arabic, Faig Ahmed first studied literature before becoming interested in carpets. The young man then developed a passion for petroglyphs, engravings representative of rock art. It was this interest that triggered his fascination with the patterns and designs on carpets. Faig Ahmed thus experiments with colours, traditional materials and ancestral activities such as carpet weaving. His desire is to break the codes and move away from conventions.
Carburant, 2016
A desire to join ancient and contemporary
Faig Ahmed likes to question religions, ancient manuscripts, mystical rites or even patterns and fabrics. His work on traditional carpets is representative of these questions. The Azeri artist manages to mix the ancient and the contemporary: he starts from a traditional and ancestral object known to all to make a work of art that questions and does not leave one indifferent. To do this, Faig Ahmed first works on a computer and uses 3D. He then uses traditional weaving processes to create his work.
Faig Ahmed’s best known projects are his carpet series. His works “Wave Function” and “Liquid” belong to the “Liquid Series”: they show carpets that are distorted and give the impression of paint melting and dripping on the floor. In the “Flood Series”, the artist exhibits carpets stained with petrol and oil. Finally, in the “Insider Series”, _Faig Ahmed works on disconcerting and surprising optical illusions. The Azeri artist has also worked on other works such as “Nine Nights” which questions the place of women in society.
Faig Ahmed first represented Azerbaijan at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Since then, his projects have travelled the world: his works are in the public collections of LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum Art) and the Seattle Art Museum. They have also been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, the Yarat Contemporary Art Centre in Baku and the Deschler Gallery in Berlin.
Secret garden, 2019
Liquid, 2014, hand-woven carpet