Aidan Salakhova

Aidan Salakhova
«Aidan Salakhova’s artistic career seems too simple. Between her graduation painting of an oriental woman and her recent, sexily draped houris came a neat array of odalisques, divas, sleeping beauties and other gorgeous half-dressed creatures. But the path from simplistic Soviet orientalism to the new, unbounded pleasure of seductive habibis is not a short one. Nor is it simple, since Salakhova is virtually on her own in addressing the hot topic of the East, while at the same time maintaining her status as Russia’s first feminist artist. It is engrossing to observe this balance of Eastern / Islamic and Western / feminist values grow ever more complex, because in her artistic career Salakhova constantly strives to live up to her own reputation as a gallery owner, curator and teacher at Suricov art Institute».

Faina Balakhovskaya