Mariyam Alibay

Mariyam Alibay

Mariyam's work starts with one question: how to show her native culture through the eyes of someone living today. She takes old stories, rituals and myths and paints them in her own language.

Her Nauryz series brings together the Kazakh and Persian roots of the spring New Year. Riders racing across a canyon, a festive table of seven dishes, a lion and a bull from the reliefs of Persepolis. Every painting is about renewal and the start of a new cycle.

Next to the big stories, Mariyam paints everyday life: a woman decorating a ceramic plate, music inside a yurt. For her, culture lives in these small rituals as much as in myths.

Her paintings bring deep colour and a sense of continuity into a modern home.

After moving to Germany, I felt especially clearly how much Shantobe shaped the way I see the world.

In her own words

What interests me most is what people believe and where those beliefs come from. I often turn to the traditions and customs of my family, to trips to holy places and the legends connected to them.

Lately I have been working a lot with memories of my home village, Shantobe, in Kazakhstan. I spent my childhood there, my parents still live there, and I go back every year. After moving to Germany, I felt especially clearly how much this place shaped the way I see the world, and how strongly it remains a part of me.

Painting, its colour, its texture, its very materiality, is my favourite craft. With it I explore what I don't yet fully understand, keep the moments that matter to me and turn what is dear to my heart into something material.