RUUIÑ KİM / RUHIÑ KİM — Clan and Spirit: A Return to the Origins

In more than 30 paintings, Leyla Makhat brings together:

• The horse as a symbol of freedom, dignity, and journey,
• Three abak signs (based on the research of Serikbol Kondybai) symbolizing the eternal cycle of life, clan, and cosmos,
• The tamga as a genealogical code transmitted through centuries.

Each painting represents:

• the story of a clan,
• a symbolic intersection of time and space,
• a bridge between ancestors and descendants.

LM KULANSHI ART Gallery presents a new solo project by Kazakh artist Leyla Mahat — RUUIÑ KİM / RUHIÑ KİM. The exhibition centers on a new painting series consisting of 37 works and addresses the pressing issue of self-identification, where the importance of preserving the memory of one’s roots stands alongside spiritual wealth passed down through generations.

An appeal to the foundations of traditional nomadic culture has always existed in the artist’s practice, manifested both through a research-based approach and through the prism of her own myth-making. The new series continues this trajectory but in a fundamentally new way.

The textile that Leyla Mahat chooses as the basis for painting most closely echoes the artist’s reflections on contemporary society, where the physical often prevails over the spiritual. Gobelin and kurak korpe as elements of traditional Kazakh life and craft have always united material and symbolic principles. In an attempt to emphasize the latter, Leyla literally darkens the textiles, softening their decorative quality and vibrancy of color. In doing so, she moves the superficial to the background and brings the sacred to the forefront.

Each work is compositionally structured around four key recognizable elements: the name of the clan, the tamga, the horse, and the abak. The first element to draw attention is the image of the horse, repeatedly appearing throughout the exhibition and expanding from pairs to entire herds. Although the animal is a frequent subject in the artist’s works, here it should not be interpreted in its conventional meaning within Kazakh culture. In this series, the horse is rather a spirit embodying the clan. This explains why, moving from one work to another, one can observe changes in the animal’s appearance and character.

Despite the emphasis on clans and their symbolic signs as carriers of deep codes and ancestral strength, this strength can only be meaningful when one understands the importance of roots, reverence for ancestors, and spiritual values. For this reason, the abak holds particular significance — a protoform deeply rooted in Turkic mythology as a circle with a central point.

Depicting this symbol, Leyla Mahat refers to interpretations by Kazakh researcher Serikbol Kondybai, according to whom the abak belongs to a complex system of mythological correspondences, symbolizing both clan and humanity: the words “opa,” “abak,” and “aimak” in Turkic-Mongolian languages denote clan or tribe. By increasing the number of rings, the artist expands the influence of this sign across the entire pictorial space and beyond it.

The series presented in RUUIÑ KİM / RUHIÑ KİM unfolds as a multilayered narrative in which each compositional element forms a living structure of mythopoetic space, where signs, images, and values exist beyond time yet remain closely connected to human memory.

Anastasiya Egorova
Art historian, researcher at the KULANSHI Center for Contemporary Art