Aida Mahmudova’s specially commissioned wall painting and installation bring her childhood memories of Azerbaijan’s Absheron peninsula to Venice in her largest work to date. On My Way Back Home to the Sea’s immense scale reenacts the sense of awe the young Mahmudova felt before the Caspian Sea’s potency and enormity, an impression still embedded in her memory. However, its location within a Vita Vitale gallery filled with allusions to ice and water provokes another reading of the artist’s imagery. Within this setting, the Caspian Sea’s foamy waters evoke the field of melting ice floating in a dangerously warming Arctic Ocean, an image reinforced by an installation of resin ice blocks on the floor.

www.aidamahmudova.com