When I first began doing art almost 10 years ago, I had such a massive desire to create works about the homeland. Yet, I was afraid to create works that could not do sufficient justice to this ancient civilization.

In Diaspora, we were brought up to feel and look towards the Homeland with a sense of reverence and holiness. The motherland, was described to us as children as a far away magical place, where great heroes were born, and where the gods were defied by legendary warriors, and it was there that our nation bled in continuous wars for over a century, and eventually exiled from the shores of the Black Sea into the unknown. Hence, the fear of creating works was predominantly an emotional set back. Moreover, the type of art I produce is not a conventional one: A pop/surreal digital style of artwork was a challenge to incorporate images – of what I considered – highly valuable into this form of art. Nevertheless, I did manage to begin creating works, and became additionally encouraged when I was invited to exhibit in the Caucasus for the first time, at Madina Saral’p Art Centre – Nalchik.

This collection, ‘Dreams of Circassia’, is a collection of works that incorporate images from Adige/Abaza nations. Each work has two stories, the original, and the one I had created. Each artwork was genuinely created from utmost affection, from a dimensionless space where no ‘psychological time’ exists. They were formed from the same place where imagination and dreams live, and that place is where the image of the homeland was formed in me as a child that I still carry within. Pictures of different men and women, who had their own stories and their own dreams are revived in these works to maybe retell a different tale… or maybe to relive again within this context of artwork. I aspire that each work will relate to each and every viewer in their own way, and hope that each one will find a piece of him/herself in each work.