In conversation with Saule Suleimenova (Kazakhstan)

During my youth I didn’t pay much attention to gender of artists that I admired or influenced me. Now it’s different, I feel I live during a big change in the world. Our times are this special moment when women are more visible than ever before and their voices could be heard.

The last few years I can say that I am very influenced by Marlene Dumas. She is my favorite artist and I just love that she believes in painting as a medium despite the fact that in our digital era some people would like to proclaim the death of the painting. Marlene Dumas proves for me that painting is alive and painters will paint.

I don’t paint directly from life, instead I choose to use pre- existing images as my source material. I explore the complex range of human emotions and focus on the human figure. I am an artist who wants to talk about beauty and to show my personal artistic view on this.

In Kazakhstan there are many very strong female artists but women artists are not represented fairly in our country. The Union of artists are 96% made of male artists.

I have no objection to participate in all female artists shows. This April, I took part in the exhibition One Belt One Road organized by The Hong Kong Federation of Women where I shared the exhibition space with works of celebrated women artists Yayoi Kusama, Leila Essaydi, Joanna Vasconcellos and others.