BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 11. Gazelli Art House
Baku is pleased to present Situated Selves, a multidisciplinary
group exhibition on the philosophical thought of Edward S. Casey
(1939), one of the most influential voices in American
phenomenology.
Casey distinguishes between “place” and “space,” arguing that
place is fundamentally tied to embodied experience and lived
reality, while space is more abstract and detached. He explores how
place shapes our identity, memory, and relationship with the world,
advocating for a “place-based” ethic that recognizes our
embeddedness in specific locations.
In contrast to modernist and Cartesian traditions that privilege
space as empty, uniform, and measurable, Casey positions place as
irreducibly lived: textured by affect, temporality, and cultural
significance. “We are not only in place,” he argues, “but of
Artists participating in the exhibition evoke places imagined,
lost, and reinhabited—exploring how place anchors experience and
how dislocation reverberates through the body and psyche. In
Situated Selves, visitors are invited not merely to observe space
but to dwell in it, to inhabit the exhibition as an experiential
The artists offer imaginative responses to space, revealing
personal narratives and emotional geographies shaped by their
unique encounters. Here, space is not a fixed backdrop but a living
entity—something to be remembered, questioned, and reimagined.
Situated Selves
Jala Aziz, Irina Eldarova, Eldar Gurban, Butunay Hagverdiyev,
Anar Huseynzade, Ramal Kazim, Tora Mais, Regina Rzayeva, Rza
Exhibition: August 12 - October 31, 2025, Gazelli Art House,
About the Artists
Jala Aziz (b. 1999) studied at the Azerbaijan
State Academy of Fine Arts (ADRA), where she earned her master’s
degree in tapestry. She works with textiles, weaving and
embroidery, repurposing old fabrics and photographs to reinterpret
themes of memory, identity, and time. Through layers, textures, and
traditional motifs, she creates evocative pieces in which the past
takes on new meaning. Jala Aziz has participated in numerous group
exhibitions in Baku, Istanbul, and Moscow.
Irina Eldarova (b. 1955) began her artistic
career as an illustrator at the Children’s Literature Publishing
House. She participated in many exhibitions in the former Soviet
Union and abroad. She has also collaborated with a number of
international media outlets. Since 1996, Eldarova has been a member
of the British Association of Journalists. She works in various
media, including watercolors, but most of her works are executed in
mixed media on a large, sometimes monumental scale. Eldarova is
well known for her contributions to the development of contemporary
conceptual art. Her interests extend to photography, video art, and
journalism. Irina Eldarova participated in major international
projects, representing contemporary Azerbaijani art in the world.
Among them, Fly to Baku, organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation
(exhibition was showcased in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome), and
Home, Sweet Home, held in 2013 at the Azerbaijani Culture Center in
Eldar Gurban (b. 1948) is an Honored Artist of
Azerbaijan and a member of the Artists Union of Azerbaijan. In 1969
he graduated from the Painting Faculty of the Azim Azimzade Art
College and the Graphic Arts Faculty of the V.I. Lenin Azerbaijan
Pedagogical Institute. Since his first exhibition in 1972, his work
has been exhibited in numerous countries worldwide. He was awarded
a gold medal and first-class diploma at the 1989 Caspian Republics’
Biennale for his work, Poet and Muse. He is one of the few artists
representing the style of primitivism within the Azerbaijani art
Butunay Hagverdiyev (b. 1989) mainly works in
painting and sculpture, and since 2009 he has been actively engaged
in video art, shooting mostly short animated films. In his video
works, he experiments with different techniques while creating a
moving sculpture using time-lapse photography and arrangement. Born
in Baku, he studied in the painting faculty at the Azim Azimzade
Art College before continuing his fine art education in Moscow at
the British Higher School of Art and Design. As a teenager he was
already an accomplished painter, having worked with a group of
artists on the painting and restoration of frescoes in an Orthodox
church from 2003 to 2008 in Baku. He has participated in a number
of significant group exhibitions in Baku and abroad in Russia,
France, and Italy. In 2013, his work was featured in the national
pavilion of Azerbaijan at the 55th Venice Biennale in Italy.
In 2015 his wooden sculptures of Azerbaijani carpet motifs were
shown in the exhibition Azerbaijani Carpets in Art in the Cannes
Festival Palace.
Anar Huseynzade (b. 1981) received a master’s
in fine arts from the Art Academy, Azerbaijan. Anar has a clear
idea of his objective as an artist—to destroy borders and to fill
the space that exists in traditional fine art in Azerbaijan. Anar
has taken part in collective exhibitions in Türkiye, Germany,
Switzerland, Uzbekistan, Moldova, and England. In addition, Anar is
a member of the Union of Artists of Azerbaijan and has exhibited
works throughout Azerbaijan since 2005. Exhibitions of specific
note include the solo exhibition Legends Speak (Museum Centre,
Baku, 2014) and Tale of Absheron (Gazelli Art House Baku, 2021).
Many of Anar’s works are held in private collections across the US,
UK, Switzerland, Türkiye, Greece, Australia, and Norway.
Ramal Kazim (b. 1987) is a graduate of the
Azerbaijani State Academy of Arts (2008). Since 2000, he has been a
member of the Azerbaijan Artist’s Union. Kazim’s works have been
exhibited extensively in Azerbaijan and abroad. Drawing from the
expressionist tradition, he composes paintings marked by impactful,
unusual figures and a chromatic bluntness. Kazim essentially
constructs a visual diary of human experience, using strategies of
shock and provocation as important vehicles of expression. Kazim’s
expressive figures and imagery directly address issues that are
taboo in Azerbaijan. The figures are representative of an
experimental portraiture that lives on the border between reality
and abstraction. Images combine broken bottle fragments, violent
gestures, and contorted faces that twist in pain and passion.
Tora Mais (b. 1979) is an Azerbaijani
multidisciplinary artist. After obtaining her MA in Fine Art
Painting from Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts, in 2002 Tora
moved to Shanghai, China, before Berlin, Germany, where she
currently resides. Her artworks, be they depictions of imaginary
creatures populating the Caspian Sea or landscapes, emit positive
energy and humor. Many of Tora’s works present a female gaze on
sexuality that, rather than objectifying, playfully employs the
visual language of Orientalist painting to depict scenes of
everyday life. Her works were featured in the Azerbaijani National
Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 and group exhibitions
at the Manege Central Exhibition Hall in 1999, the Centre for
Contemporary Art, Stavanger, in 2010, Voluntary Art Liaison,
Berlin, in 2018, and the Cyprus Museum of Modern Arts in 2019,
which acquired her works for the permanent collection. Tora took
part in the travelling exhibition Fly to Baku (2011-2012) and PERMM
Museum (2015), and Café Avarice & Generosity in Galerie Dix Hélène
Lacharmoise (2019) was dedicated to Azerbaijan’s contemporary art
Regina Rzayeva (b. 1996) is a graduate of the
Azerbaijan University of Culture and Art with a degree in fashion
design. She uses traditional painting techniques and works with
different materials and fabrics. For the artist, the fabric ground
is an essential component of her paintings. Using the technique of
thin lettering, she applies the paint in fine vertical lines along
the fabric structure of the canvas, entering into a dialogue with
the surface texture. Rzayeva describes her artistic method as
observational. For her, art is an integral part of philosophizing
and recognizing the concept of time. With the subtlety,
“tremulousness,” and lightness of her works, the artist wants to
draw attention to the impermanence and fragility of
self-perception.
Rza Rzazade (b. 1994) is a Baku-based visual
artist. He studied painting at the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine
Arts. His works are included in private collections in Italy,
Germany, Turkey, and the UK. In 2022, he presented his first solo
exhibition, Storm. Rzazade’s visual language seeks balance between
emotional chaos and form; through expressive gestures and symbolic
fragments, he constructs multilayered portraits of contemporary
existence. Occasionally, nature—especially the motif of
trees—appears as a silent metaphor within this visual flow.
About the Gallery
Founded in 2010 by Mila Askarova, Gazelli Art House represents
an international roster of artists, from leading figures in
post-war movements such as Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism to
ultra-contemporary voices redefining art in the digital age. The
gallery champions artists who challenge convention through the
creative exploration of a variety of media. Along with its sister
site in Baku, the gallery also specializes in art from Azerbaijan
and its neighbors, fostering cross-cultural dialogue. In 2015 the
gallery launched GAZELL.iO, an online platform specifically
supporting innovation in art and technologies.
For further information, please contact:
[email protected]
BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 11. Gazelli Art House
Baku is pleased to present Situated Selves, a multidisciplinary
group exhibition on the philosophical thought of Edward S. Casey
(1939), one of the most influential voices in American
phenomenology.
Casey distinguishes between “place” and “space,” arguing that
place is fundamentally tied to embodied experience and lived
reality, while space is more abstract and detached. He explores how
place shapes our identity, memory, and relationship with the world,
advocating for a “place-based” ethic that recognizes our
embeddedness in specific locations.
In contrast to modernist and Cartesian traditions that privilege
space as empty, uniform, and measurable, Casey positions place as
irreducibly lived: textured by affect, temporality, and cultural
significance. “We are not only in place,” he argues, “but of
Artists participating in the exhibition evoke places imagined,
lost, and reinhabited—exploring how place anchors experience and
how dislocation reverberates through the body and psyche. In
Situated Selves, visitors are invited not merely to observe space
but to dwell in it, to inhabit the exhibition as an experiential
The artists offer imaginative responses to space, revealing
personal narratives and emotional geographies shaped by their
unique encounters. Here, space is not a fixed backdrop but a living
entity—something to be remembered, questioned, and reimagined.
Situated Selves
Jala Aziz, Irina Eldarova, Eldar Gurban, Butunay Hagverdiyev,
Anar Huseynzade, Ramal Kazim, Tora Mais, Regina Rzayeva, Rza
Exhibition: August 12 - October 31, 2025, Gazelli Art House,
About the Artists
Jala Aziz (b. 1999) studied at the Azerbaijan
State Academy of Fine Arts (ADRA), where she earned her master’s
degree in tapestry. She works with textiles, weaving and
embroidery, repurposing old fabrics and photographs to reinterpret
themes of memory, identity, and time. Through layers, textures, and
traditional motifs, she creates evocative pieces in which the past
takes on new meaning. Jala Aziz has participated in numerous group
exhibitions in Baku, Istanbul, and Moscow.
Irina Eldarova (b. 1955) began her artistic
career as an illustrator at the Children’s Literature Publishing
House. She participated in many exhibitions in the former Soviet
Union and abroad. She has also collaborated with a number of
international media outlets. Since 1996, Eldarova has been a member
of the British Association of Journalists. She works in various
media, including watercolors, but most of her works are executed in
mixed media on a large, sometimes monumental scale. Eldarova is
well known for her contributions to the development of contemporary
conceptual art. Her interests extend to photography, video art, and
journalism. Irina Eldarova participated in major international
projects, representing contemporary Azerbaijani art in the world.
Among them, Fly to Baku, organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation
(exhibition was showcased in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome), and
Home, Sweet Home, held in 2013 at the Azerbaijani Culture Center in
Eldar Gurban (b. 1948) is an Honored Artist of
Azerbaijan and a member of the Artists Union of Azerbaijan. In 1969
he graduated from the Painting Faculty of the Azim Azimzade Art
College and the Graphic Arts Faculty of the V.I. Lenin Azerbaijan
Pedagogical Institute. Since his first exhibition in 1972, his work
has been exhibited in numerous countries worldwide. He was awarded
a gold medal and first-class diploma at the 1989 Caspian Republics’
Biennale for his work, Poet and Muse. He is one of the few artists
representing the style of primitivism within the Azerbaijani art
Butunay Hagverdiyev (b. 1989) mainly works in
painting and sculpture, and since 2009 he has been actively engaged
in video art, shooting mostly short animated films. In his video
works, he experiments with different techniques while creating a
moving sculpture using time-lapse photography and arrangement. Born
in Baku, he studied in the painting faculty at the Azim Azimzade
Art College before continuing his fine art education in Moscow at
the British Higher School of Art and Design. As a teenager he was
already an accomplished painter, having worked with a group of
artists on the painting and restoration of frescoes in an Orthodox
church from 2003 to 2008 in Baku. He has participated in a number
of significant group exhibitions in Baku and abroad in Russia,
France, and Italy. In 2013, his work was featured in the national
pavilion of Azerbaijan at the 55th Venice Biennale in Italy.
In 2015 his wooden sculptures of Azerbaijani carpet motifs were
shown in the exhibition Azerbaijani Carpets in Art in the Cannes
Festival Palace.
Anar Huseynzade (b. 1981) received a master’s
in fine arts from the Art Academy, Azerbaijan. Anar has a clear
idea of his objective as an artist—to destroy borders and to fill
the space that exists in traditional fine art in Azerbaijan. Anar
has taken part in collective exhibitions in Türkiye, Germany,
Switzerland, Uzbekistan, Moldova, and England. In addition, Anar is
a member of the Union of Artists of Azerbaijan and has exhibited
works throughout Azerbaijan since 2005. Exhibitions of specific
note include the solo exhibition Legends Speak (Museum Centre,
Baku, 2014) and Tale of Absheron (Gazelli Art House Baku, 2021).
Many of Anar’s works are held in private collections across the US,
UK, Switzerland, Türkiye, Greece, Australia, and Norway.
Ramal Kazim (b. 1987) is a graduate of the
Azerbaijani State Academy of Arts (2008). Since 2000, he has been a
member of the Azerbaijan Artist’s Union. Kazim’s works have been
exhibited extensively in Azerbaijan and abroad. Drawing from the
expressionist tradition, he composes paintings marked by impactful,
unusual figures and a chromatic bluntness. Kazim essentially
constructs a visual diary of human experience, using strategies of
shock and provocation as important vehicles of expression. Kazim’s
expressive figures and imagery directly address issues that are
taboo in Azerbaijan. The figures are representative of an
experimental portraiture that lives on the border between reality
and abstraction. Images combine broken bottle fragments, violent
gestures, and contorted faces that twist in pain and passion.
Tora Mais (b. 1979) is an Azerbaijani
multidisciplinary artist. After obtaining her MA in Fine Art
Painting from Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts, in 2002 Tora
moved to Shanghai, China, before Berlin, Germany, where she
currently resides. Her artworks, be they depictions of imaginary
creatures populating the Caspian Sea or landscapes, emit positive
energy and humor. Many of Tora’s works present a female gaze on
sexuality that, rather than objectifying, playfully employs the
visual language of Orientalist painting to depict scenes of
everyday life. Her works were featured in the Azerbaijani National
Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 and group exhibitions
at the Manege Central Exhibition Hall in 1999, the Centre for
Contemporary Art, Stavanger, in 2010, Voluntary Art Liaison,
Berlin, in 2018, and the Cyprus Museum of Modern Arts in 2019,
which acquired her works for the permanent collection. Tora took
part in the travelling exhibition Fly to Baku (2011-2012) and PERMM
Museum (2015), and Café Avarice & Generosity in Galerie Dix Hélène
Lacharmoise (2019) was dedicated to Azerbaijan’s contemporary art
Regina Rzayeva (b. 1996) is a graduate of the
Azerbaijan University of Culture and Art with a degree in fashion
design. She uses traditional painting techniques and works with
different materials and fabrics. For the artist, the fabric ground
is an essential component of her paintings. Using the technique of
thin lettering, she applies the paint in fine vertical lines along
the fabric structure of the canvas, entering into a dialogue with
the surface texture. Rzayeva describes her artistic method as
observational. For her, art is an integral part of philosophizing
and recognizing the concept of time. With the subtlety,
“tremulousness,” and lightness of her works, the artist wants to
draw attention to the impermanence and fragility of
self-perception.
Rza Rzazade (b. 1994) is a Baku-based visual
artist. He studied painting at the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine
Arts. His works are included in private collections in Italy,
Germany, Turkey, and the UK. In 2022, he presented his first solo
exhibition, Storm. Rzazade’s visual language seeks balance between
emotional chaos and form; through expressive gestures and symbolic
fragments, he constructs multilayered portraits of contemporary
existence. Occasionally, nature—especially the motif of
trees—appears as a silent metaphor within this visual flow.
About the Gallery
Founded in 2010 by Mila Askarova, Gazelli Art House represents
an international roster of artists, from leading figures in
post-war movements such as Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism to
ultra-contemporary voices redefining art in the digital age. The
gallery champions artists who challenge convention through the
creative exploration of a variety of media. Along with its sister
site in Baku, the gallery also specializes in art from Azerbaijan
and its neighbors, fostering cross-cultural dialogue. In 2015 the
gallery launched GAZELL.iO, an online platform specifically
supporting innovation in art and technologies.
For further information, please contact:
[email protected]