Dek Unu Magazine - Artur Bolzhurov

Artist-photographer Artur Bolzhurov shares images from a years-long series of “psychological portraits” of artists — painters, photographers, a sculptor — from his native Kyrgyzstan. Mocking the idea of the conventional, flattering portrait, but undertaken with the same technical care and commitment as Bolzhurov’s commercial studio work, these character studies have a very sharp edge. Each of these portraits lives on the border between humorous and disconcerting; each revels in irony. Think of them as passport photos, useful for somewhat turbulent flights to fantasyland, where it’s the artists who make all the rules. Some are fun and funny – there’s a military officer with an alligator on his shoulder. Some are dark and disturbing — there’s a military officer with an alligator on his shoulder! All are provocative, all are both foreign and familiar. All of them confirm George Braque’s point, “In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that cannot be explained.”