Azernews.Az

By Nazrin Gadimova

A unique art exhibition featuring the works of Azerbaijani Artist Haydar Hatemi was held in Buffalo-based Full Circle Studios on June 14.

The exhibition featured nearly 15 works by Hatemi, including his highly regarded Istanbul Series paintings, as well as pieces from Ottoman Sultans series which are painted on ostrich eggs.

Organized by the Full Circle Studios and supported by the Turkish Cultural Center of Buffalo, the event also screened a short film produced by Full Circle Studios about the artist.

Born in Azerbaijan in 1945, Haydar Hatemi is one of the most prominent painters of the Azerbaijani Diaspora. Hatemi studied at University of Tehran Fine Arts Academy, and during the 1980's moved his art studio to Istanbul, Turkey where he stayed for nearly two decades before moving to the United States.

More than a dozen of his works produced over the last ten years demonstrate Hatemi's innovative approaches to painting while taking the viewers through a tour of the great city of Istanbul, the capital of the illustrious Ottoman Empire.

Hatemi's landmark works are widely considered to be his large scale oil paintings that he created for the Qatari Royal Family over the last decade. In his Istanbul Collection, the artist depicts the landscapes, architecture and the people of Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire period. For these works, Hatemi depends on old published gravures and photographs of the foreign diplomats who lived in or visited Istanbul over the last three centuries.