top of page
Search

Asia NOW, Gazelli Art House, Booth Mo7, 22–26 October 2025

Oct 22, 2025
2 min read

Gazelli Art House is delighted to announce its inaugural participation in Asia NOW with a three-person presentation of works by Agil Abdullayev (b. 1993), Nouf Aljowaysir (b. 1993), and Aida Mahmudova (b. 1982).


Aida Mahmudova harnesses a rich material palette as a creative means by which to connect with herself and her surroundings.

 



The artist uses material as tool to navigate the world she inhabits. Light, colour, and matter are trialled in undulating landscapes, semi-abstracts, and sculptures. Using layers of paper, clay, paint, cement, stone, and, more recently, epoxy resin and untreated marble, the artist explores connections and interactions, seeking to evoke a spectrum of universal human sentiments; love, loss, memory and desire. Mahmudova is an Azerbaijani artist and Founder of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre offering local and international support for young artists. Opened in Baku in 2011, YARAT now operates three exhibition spaces across the city, with an artist-led programme of residencies and events.

 

She holds a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, and her work has been exhibited internationally and uses a variety of techniques and media. Recent solo exhibitions include A Room With A View, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2024); Heaven Can Wait, Zurab Tsereteli Museum of Modern Art, Tbilisi, Georgia (2022); and Liminality, Gazelli Art House, London, UK (2022).


It’s the artist and the medium. The never-ending relationship between me and the other resembles perpetual conversation. It takes full involvement from both sides. The act itself is the purest form of creation. This, in turn, gives you a unique opportunity to engage in authentic and unguarded communication with unfolding perspectives. It connects and unites us in the moment of now, giving versatile, unpredictable and beautiful outcomes.

— Aida Mahmudova —




The sculptural pieces from the Untitled Series (2025) are the

culmination of the artist’s ongoing experimental laboratory 

with ceramic, glass, and natural stone.


The ceramics feature handmade glazes composed of locally sourced Azerbaijani materials-including oil, ash, seashells, sand, clay, and stone-resulting in a process that is both grounded in the landscape and singular in form. Mirroring the allure and tactile quality of the glazes, the glass elements are blown to emphasize porosity, surface texture, and the presence of air bubbles-evoking the same material sensitivity found in the glazes themselves. In this way, the glass becomes an extension of the ceramic surface, echoing its texture in a more fragile form. Drawing inspiration from cairns-stone markers composed of vertically stacked, pillar-like stones that historically served as funerary, commemorative, memorial, and guiding landmarks- the artist reimagines these ritualistic forms as personal repositories of memory. These vernacular structures channel the momentum of time and serve as navigational stones for the artist herself, mapping an intimate and symbolic terrain.


Together, Abdullayev, Aljowaysir, and Mahmudova present distinct but resonant practices: one excavating memory and place through material and form, another confronting algorithmic systems and inherited biases in digital archives, and a third reframing narratives of identity and intimacy through painting. Their works foreground questions of belonging, erasure, and resilience — central themes within Gazelli Art House’s programme, bridging contemporary practice across regions and generations.



 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page