Fragments Of Samarkand

Andrey Krikis spent most of his career in Uzbekistan, far from the centres where reputations are made, working with colour in a way that his contemporaries recognised immediately and the market largely missed. He began in academic figuration and moved steadily toward abstract expressionism — saturated colour fields, rhythmic gesture, surface tension that evokes rather than depicts. Samarkand enters his paintings not as subject but as atmosphere: the particular light, the saturated pigment, the sense of ancient pattern absorbed and dismantled simultaneously. This presentation at Andakulova Gallery brings together key works that chart the decisive shifts in his practice — from figuration to abstraction, from description to sensation. Krikis died in 1994 at 44. The works shown here are oil on canvas, large-scale, painted in the final years of a career that was prolific and largely unrecognised outside Central Asia. Andakulova Gallery has represented his estate for years and has been making the case for his significance in Dubai since opening. This exhibition is the most concentrated argument yet.