Exhibition Sakena Bektiara - «The Golden Age»

On July 3, 2025, at 16:00, the State Museum of Arts of the Republic of Kazakhstan named after Abylkhan Kasteev will host the official opening of the solo exhibition by Kazakhstan artist Saken Bektiyar titled «Kelte Altyn Ghasyr» (The Short Golden Age).

The exhibition «Kelte Altyn Ghasyr» is a significant cultural event that contributes to the national artistic heritage. It is the result of many years of creative exploration, inner contemplation, and artistic experience. More than a retrospective, it is a genuine space of thought that allows a deeper insight into the visual world of Saken Bektiyar. It is a philosophical meditation on time, fate, the body, and the line. The artist himself calls his style «the music of graphics», where the line becomes the breath and voice of the steppe.

Bektiyar works in graphics, painting, and illustration, blending visual media with poetic and musical thinking. His style evolved outside academic canons, yet with a refined sense of form and composition, enabling him to create images filled with plastic rhythm and inner tension.

The exposition includes both large-format paintings and delicate graphic works executed in ink, charcoal, and pencil. Special attention is given to the series «Kyz Kuu or A Local Festival of Love», «The Black Swan», and «Kazakh Girl with a Silver Earring», which reflect folk archetypes and motifs rooted in steppe culture and reinterpreted in a contemporary context. Also noteworthy are his recent paintings such as «The Circle or the Pursuit of Harmony” and “The Horseman and His Trophy», where the artist appeals to the collective unconscious and the visual memory of the steppe.

The colour palette ranges from deep black and ochre to translucent greys and misty pinks. For the artist, colours are a way to transmit emotion; they do not describe but rather resonate with perception. As art historian Nadezhda Polonskaya notes: «He draws like he sings, and sings like he breathes... You have to see it — words cannot capture it.»

Saken Bektiyar, also known by the pseudonym Kenbee, has participated in numerous international projects - from exhibitions at the «Tengry Umai» gallery to artist residencies in Germany, Spain, Montenegro, and the United Kingdom (including at the Victoria and Albert Museum). His works are held in private collections around the world.

The exhibition at the State Museum of Arts of the Republic of Kazakhstan named after A. Kasteev will be a landmark in the ongoing series «Kelte Altyn Ghasyr», which began in the 2000s and continues to this day as a unified artistic cycle.