THE GUARDIAN
By Paula Cocozza
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| Virgin, 2016. Photograph: Fakhriyya Mammadova/YARAT Contemporary Art Space |
One day when
Faig Ahmed was seven, his parents left him in his bedroom to play on the rug, a family heirloom that had belonged to his mother’s grandmother.
Ahmed was tracing patterns in the carpet, his fingers searching for a way to travel from the border to the centre – the whole design seemed to him a labyrinth. Then he had a brainwave. He fetched a large pair of scissors and cut off the border “to make it easier”. Once he started, it was hard to stop. He cut the rug into more and more pieces, “took a pattern from here and moved it there”. now, at 33, Ahmed’s carpet art – in which he distorts traditional designs – is coveted around Europe and the US (less so in Baku), where pieces sell for upwards of $15,000 (£11,870). [
link]
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| De-stabilization, 2016. Photograph: Faig Ahmed |
