Interpretations of Uyghur Artist Abdukadir Dilmurat

Dark Gestures, ink and watercolor on watercolor paper, copyright Nina Leung, 2013

This is about as expressive as I get. It's so hard for me to be wild and gestural. I like it neat. While working on these pieces I was thinking of my experience there, in Xinjiang province, the people, the colors, old town Kashgar, and imagined the shapes and lines I saw. The painting above is not so literal, but the two below are.

Karakul, oil pastel and watercolor, copyright Nina Leung, 2013

Fig Cross Section, oil pastel and watercolor, copyright Nina Leung 2013

The two paintings above are my literal paintings. I took a view of Karakul Lake and simplified and stylized it. The fig painting is a remembrance of the amazing yellow figs we ate there. They had yellow skin and the meat was an orange/pink color, really beautiful, and really delicious.

Eamon's Uyghur Painting, copyright Nina Leung, 2013

Here's Eamon's try at doing a painting like Abdukadir Dilmurat. He received a lot of color and mixed them in his own way. One year olds can be quite expressive!

Children Recreating Uyghur Artist Abdukadir Dilmurat

Eamon all set for some good finger painting inspired by the Uyghur artist, Abdukadir Dilmurat. Dilmurat's paintings are very expressive and use a lot of color. So that was the plan with Eamon, give him a lot of color and let him express. This is a good, easy project for an almost 2 year old with pretty nice results.

Living in the paintings of Uyghur Artist Abdukadir Dilmurat

Living in the paintings of Uyghur Artist Abdukadir Dilmurat by ninamleung featuring a round ottoman

FOSSIL blue bedding / Wood wall clock / Rectangle tray / Jonathan Adler frame / Pier 1 Imports decorative hardware / Armoire / Karma Living round ottoman / Voluspa Crane Flower Candle in Tin | Gracious Home | Product

This was a fun one! Because Kashgar sits right in between the West and East, it truly holds a vast mixture of goods from both regions. Many of the things shown here are Chinese inspired as well as Turkish inspired. The Uyghur people are of Turkish origin so adding those influences makes sense. 

Dressing with the Uyghur Artist Abdukadir Dilmurat

Dressing with the Uyghur Artist Abdukadir Dilmurat by ninamleung featuring a bezel necklace

Kenzo print dress / Mulberry / Loeffler Randall black high heel boots / Givenchy red tote bag / Bezel necklace / SCP handcrafted earrings, $19 / Cream nail polish / Dior Hypnotic Poison

I put together something a little exotic, using a richly patterned dress as the starting point and finding thick, warm textures to surround it. The area is known for textiles, particularly silk and wool felt. Animal hide is also prevalent, particularly in the mountain areas. I added a little jade as a reminder that we're in China.

Would you believe that the film The Kite Runner was actually filmed in Kashgar, China? It's a stand-in for Afghanistan. It makes sense since they are so close to each other geographically and the area is much the same. The borders don't make that much of a difference. Great film to watch for inspiration and to see what Kashgar is like.

Uyghur Week: The paintings of Abdukadir Dilmurat

Ipad rendering of a painting by Abdukadir Dilmurat

This New York Times article in the Sunday paper inspired me to choose a Uyghur (wee-ger) artist from the Xinjiang province of China. I've never heard of Abdukadir Dilmurat until now, but I am quite impressed with his paintings, especially after trying to copy one of them on the ipad, as you see above. It wasn't easy! He used every color imaginable and placed those colors in very particular places. He obviously enjoys the act of painting and the feel of the paint.

Learn a bit about the Uyghur people and I think it's pretty easy to find the symbolism of the colors. Being of Turkish decent, the Uyghurs are pretty different than the Han Chinese living in the rest of China. They look different, the culture is different, they speak a different language. They even use their own time, Xinjiang time, separate from the rest of China. These differences create a lot of political unrest in the region of which one can find resonating in the abstract paintings of Abdukadir Dilmurat.