The poet of stone, or a Sculptor by vocation
Anyone who has been in Ashgabat, doesn’t fail to walk down “Inspiration” Alley or the “Ilham” Park of Sculptures. The art and park complex is opened by a historical figure – chess player and philologist Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Suli. Bending over the solution of a chess problem, the thinker seems to be preparing to make a decisive move. The author of the monument – sculptor Abdymuhammad Oramadov whose works can be seen not only in Turkmenistan.
France, Germany, Poland, Russia, World Sculpture Park in Changchun (China). This is only a small list of countries where the sculptures of the Turkmen master have found their honorable “place”. After all, in his youth, Abdymuhammad dreamed of becoming a pilot or theater artist, until by chance he found himself on the entrance exams of the Ashgabat Art School.
The sculptor was born in the Mary region, in the family of a carpenter. And apparently the talent to create with his own hands from locally available material something beautiful, passed from father to son at the genetic level. His love of drawing and designing, his eternal search for new forms and compositional solutions, and his untiring desire to develop will lead him to the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
For two years, a student from Turkmenistan will be a free listener, and soon a credit student of the talent “foundry”. Today, the sculptor recalls with nostalgia his student years, which slid by during his visits to museums and exhibitions, workshops of famous artists. Returning home with baggage of acquirements, Abdymuhammad Oramadov had no doubt – the creation of the sculptures is a calling and work of his life.
When traveling about Turkmenistan or abroad, the master never comes home empty-handed. The sculptor takes a stone along as a souvenir from each place he visited. After cutting, pieces of ordinary cobblestones “magically” turn into human figures, take clear shapes and quite recognizable images.
Abdy works with a variety of materials – granite, marble, wood, gypsum, metal. In his workshop, you can find products suited to every fancy and not always guess what the author carved a particular sculpture from?
In 2015, the master presented a collection of 170 original works at a personal exhibition. But if we consider that some of his works are “scattered” around the world, we can say that there are several times more sculptural compositions, monuments, busts and reliefs created by him.
Abdymuhammad Oramadov said that in his life everything has shaped as it was supposed. If he could turn back the clock now, he wouldn’t change a thing. Creativity is the path of a sculptor, inventor and poet of stone.
