In 2007 Faig Ahmed started a series of works that deconstruct the traditional patterns and designs of hand-woven Middle Eastern carpets - the symbol of his local tradition - transforming them into a striking visual feat. Looking at the work Oiling as an example, every attendee can see a traditional Azerbaijani carpet, which, half-way down, mutates into a cascade of seemingly liquid colour, as if the carpet’s threads had metamorphosed into streams of multi-coloured paint. A compelling visual illusion: like the top half, the lower part is still a wool carpet made with natural colours.
As Caroline Busta notes in her artforum review (October 2013) of Faig Ahmed’s works: ‘There is a postcolonial tendency to deny non-western cultural producers the agency to employ irony and empty signifiers and to misread codes, but Ahmed has utilised these operations to great effect.’
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