Ali Aidarkulovich Baktygereev

Ali Baktygereev was born on April 15, 1962, in the village of Qulandy in the Aral district of Kyzylorda Region, as the sixth child in his family. All seven children of the family attended the eight-year school in Qulandy. From a young age, Ali was passionate about art, and the villagers called him a sculptor. His hometown left a deep imprint on his later creative work. Due to health issues, he graduated a year late from school.

His working life began as a visual decorator at Bozoy Secondary School in Shalkar district, Aktobe Region. In 1985, he was admitted to the Almaty Art College named after N.V. Gogol. This institution was the only place where talents from all over the country gathered, and many famous Kazakh artists were educated there. Ali stood out in the community for his broad humanities knowledge and could speak eloquently on topics of literature, religion, and politics. When the December 1986 events took place, Ali was among those who defended the youth and was beaten. However, he never boasted about his involvement in the December events.

In 1989, he entered the Almaty State Theater and Fine Arts Institute to study monumental painting. The period of independence was very difficult. Many students left their studies due to the need to make a living. Even during those hard times, Ali did not abandon his studies.

After graduating, despite his immense talent, no one invited Ali to teach at the institute. He took up a teaching position at the Almaty Visual Art College named after N.V. Gogol, where he was warmly received. Ali's contributions as a teacher are also immense. Concerned about the future of Kazakh art, he paid special attention to guiding and nurturing young artists. His legacy as a teacher continues through the many students whose wings he helped strengthen. Ali had immense respect among his students, and his conversations were filled with deep humor.

He did not rush into creative work, spending a long time fulfilling commissioned work. In 2001, works commissioned by Kaz NU im. Al Farabi. The sketches were made by Ali Baktygereev. M. Duisenbayev and R. Baibolatova performed in the tapestry.

From 2007 onwards, Ali began his creative pursuits. The main direction of his work was multi-compositional thematic compositions. Since his environment was rural, the nature of the steppe, people, legends, music, epics, and history became the main sources of his inspiration. His works "Homeland," "Kazakh Batyr," "Migration," "Heir," "At the Hearth," "At the Table," "Saryn," "Voice," and "Requiem" can be called examples of this. In his works, mythology and folkloric motifs are not merely a “background” but become the very essence of the composition. His romantic explorations have created a phenomenon of mythological folklorism in art.

In the 2010s his painting turned more and more to myth and deep history — Atlantis, Shambhala, the idea of Turan. This search gave rise to “Saryn” (2015) and “Sary Ün” (2017), and to “Janaza” (Requiem), a work inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy in Mukagali Makatayev’s Kazakh translation — one of the works the artist himself considered the most important of his life.

He was a member of the Union of Artists of the Republic of Kazakhstan, a laureate of the international competitions “Zhiger” and “Shabyt”, winner and laureate of the national exhibition “550 Years of the Kazakh Khanate” at the A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts (2015), and a laureate of the TURAN International Art Prize (2019). In 2015 he was awarded the badge “Excellence in Culture of the Republic of Kazakhstan” for his contribution to culture. In 2022, by decree of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, he received a letter of gratitude for his contribution to the development of the fine arts and spiritual culture of Kazakhstan.

Ali was a free thinker, deeply ingrained with the essence of the Kazakh spirit, and a person of unique poetic nature. Ali always supported national ideas and welcomed new developments for the nation. He greeted the Turan movement with enthusiasm and supported it until the end of his life.

Ali Baktygereev died suddenly on 12 October 2023 in his workshop. As a true artist he never sought fame: his soul longed for the quiet of the workshop and an unending search. He kept painting and exploring to the very end, and left like a symbol of eternal search — brush in hand, among unfinished canvases.

Ali passed away at the peak of his potential, with much more to give to art. Dedicated to art and a key figure in the international Turan consolidation, Ali Baktygereev - a talented artist, representative of the "Golden Generation" of independence, and a classic who opened a new chapter in Kazakh art—will continue to be the subject of specialized research analyzing and disseminating his creative life.