Modern artists, trying to stand out from their numerous colleagues, invent the most unimaginable ways to do this. But only a few manage to truly capture the public’s imagination. Baku-based artist Rashad Alakbarov is one of them. Despite having an artistic education, he burst into the highest cultural and creative society without touching canvases or paints. It was enough to show the world one single painting-installation “Flight to Baku”. Even critics were delighted, amazed by Alakbarov’s skill, who chose only light, shadow and… garbage to create works of art.

Preparing to create the next black-and-white masterpiece, Rashad Alakbarov collects all kinds of rubbish: pieces of pipes, bottles, crumpled paper, rusty bolts and nuts, boxes, light bulbs, scraps… It seems that he simply turns over garbage containers and from their contents builds structures that, if properly positioned, and the lighting cast shadows that unexpectedly resemble city landscapes, human silhouettes, inscriptions, and patterns. How from all this “good” you can build something that gives a characteristic shadow is a secret known only to the author of the structures.

True, Alakbarov’s fateful painting “Flight to Baku” is made of harmless multi-colored plastic airplanes suspended from the ceiling. A translucent material capable of giving reflexes, plus the right lighting – and not a black silhouette appears on a white wall, but a colored landscape, as if sketched from a bird’s eye view. However, any black and white painting by the artist symbolizes a certain event, a life story. Critics note that it is the garbage used that emphasizes the mood of each work – loneliness, grief, pain, joy, happiness.