Deerbie®
About the artist

Askhat

Askhat Khaydarov (Tajikistan, 1964) is a painter, illustrator, and ceramicist based in Belgium, whose career is inseparable from an extraordinary life journey… He spent his childhood in the wild plains of his native Central Asian country, Tajikistan, before crossing the border with his family at the age of seven to study in Uzbekistan. Between 1978 and 1982, he studied at the P. Benkov National College of Fine Arts (Tashkent) before training in industrial design and packaging design at the Uzbekistan State Institute of Fine Arts and Theatre. After the Institute, he participated in exhibitions of young artists and simultaneously worked and trained in a ceramics workshop. A few years later, in 1993, he exhibited his vases and pottery in America. He also worked for several years as an illustrator for children's magazine publishers before the political and economic context of the time radically changed his life. From the mid-1990s, the crisis in the Soviet Union made life increasingly difficult. Without prospects or security, Askhat had to put his art and skills aside to survive by taking odd jobs in shops. In 2000, he left Tashkent and Uzbekistan for good with his wife and two children, settling in Brussels. What followed was a "classic" asylum process, which fortunately lasted less than a year. After a period in the former Royal Military Hospital, they moved to the Red Cross center in Nessonvaux, where art and cultural life once again took center stage in Askhat's life, a role it would never relinquish : "There, I started painting a lot and was able to exhibit my paintings at center events like the Christmas markets. I was participating in something! Painting and drawing occupy my mind, channel my emotions. It's also fun." "When I paint, I am relaxed. » Without yet having obtained their papers, but authorized to live in the country during the process, they settled in Verviers in 2001, in an apartment: “Financially, it was very complicated. I had to stop painting for a while because the materials are expensive, but I did a lot of drawing with pencils and charcoal. I gradually made friends in French classes and at the exhibitions I went to. That’s where I started painting and drawing for friends and their friends, and one day, I was offered the opportunity to exhibit.” It was in a great exhibition at the AMI Gallery (Verviers, Belgium) that he participated in his first real exhibition alongside renowned artists such as the painter Gilbert Baibay (1922-2021, Liège) and the ceramicist Charles Bottin (Verviers). He will continue to paint and exhibit his work while working as a maintenance worker at a school. In 2022, he resumed his studies in illustration at Saint-Luc Liège, through a social advancement program, and decided to create a very personal book as his graduation project, published by Phytomium, with the help of Liège-based writer Marie-Bernadette Mars. “In this book, I talk about my father’s native village in Kyrgyzstan. He grew up, like me after him, surrounded by nature. It was a wonderful childhood. My father could draw freehand all the animals he observed, like rabbits or horses. I was always impressed by this ability. It was in his blood. This book is part of our story; it’s an object of art and, above all, a means of passing on our heritage.” Nature, trees and animals, but also the female body through the nude or the human-animal connection, occupies a central place in all his work. When asked about his collaboration with Deerbie, Askhat replies: “I like to vary my approach, learn, and offer something new. With ceramics and sculpture, I already work with volumes. It’s a practice I love. And contemporary art is liberated. It’s hard for me to break free and step outside of academic conventions, but I’m trying. This project is different from what I usually do; I can experiment with different techniques.”
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