Tatarstan Biennale, Kazan
Presented by Myth Gallery, St Petersburg
12 February – 23 March 2021
Presented as part of the Tatarstan Biennale in Kazan, Breath of the Hidden introduced Zibeyda Seyidova’s work within a broader international dialogue on identity, tradition, and contemporary abstraction. Situated in the cultural centre of Tatarstan, the exhibition framed painting as a space where concealment, trace, and presence are held in delicate balance.
Seyidova’s canvases, built through dense layers of oil and textured brushwork, function as thresholds rather than images. Silence becomes material, and surface becomes a site where meaning emerges through restraint. Her work approaches abstraction not as formal reduction, but as a contemplative practice attentive to what remains unseen.
At the core of the installation were two paintings depicting draped cloth. Rendered with austerity and precision, the fabric evoked multiple associations—veil, shroud, prayer rug—without resolving into a single identity. Material here operates paradoxically: it conceals while it reveals, echoing the Islamic philosophical dialectic of the manifest (ẓāhir) and the hidden (bāṭin). The cloth becomes a locus of ambiguity, charged with both physical presence and metaphysical resonance.
The exhibition space was arranged as a passage rather than a static display. Darkened walls intensified the luminosity and weight of the canvases, while a central white wall, bearing a solitary geometric abstraction, offered a moment of stillness and reduction. This spatial rhythm guided viewers through alternating densities of matter and restraint, encouraging slow, attentive looking.
The title Breath of the Hidden reflects Seyidova’s understanding of abstraction as a spiritual proposition. Breath is at once invisible and essential—fleeting yet sustaining. In this sense, the paintings function as sites of invocation rather than objects of consumption. They operate as visual dhikr, acts of remembrance that gesture beyond visibility without naming or depicting.
Visitors were invited not simply to observe, but to dwell within the work. In the folds of painted fabric and in the quiet geometries of light and shadow, presence is felt through deferral. Painting becomes a space to breathe with—an encounter with what exceeds form and remains just beyond sight.
By presenting Seyidova’s work at the Tatarstan Biennale, Myth Gallery affirmed its commitment to contemporary practices that engage spiritual tradition within a global language of abstraction. Breath of the Hidden positioned Seyidova’s paintings as vital contributions to ongoing conversations around visibility, faith, and the metaphysical horizons of painting today.
