A Surreal Take On The Carpet

Born in Azerbaijan, Ahmed had been surrounded by carpets for his whole life. He says: “As any other Azeri family we had carpets everywhere – on the floor, on the walls, in each room. I was always playing with the patterns of the carpet imagining there were roads, trees, dragons etc.” Symbols of stability and unshakable tradition, they became an interesting subject to the artist. He started to research the meaning of ancient motives and found many similarities between them in different cultures. It seemed like each symbol on the carpets had its own meaning. “A carpet is a kind of book which you can read if you know the words,” Ahmed says. Using traditional weaving technique (sometimes as old as 300 years), he transforms old patterns into new, surprising concepts, like when he alters the original design to suggest pixelation, digital distortion.