Artists & Paintings

Suray Akmuradova is a Turkmen painter whose work draws deeply from the landscapes, history, and cultural memory of Central Asia. I discovered her work through a friend from Turkmenistan, who introduced me to her paintings. I was immediately struck by their extraordinary color, atmosphere, and sense of place.

Born in 1959 in Turkmenistan, Akmuradova studied at the Shota Rustaveli State Art School in Ashgabat and later graduated from the prestigious Ilya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in St. Petersburg in 1987, where she studied easel painting under Yuri Neprintsev. She became a member of the Union of Artists of Turkmenistan in 1990.

Her paintings have been exhibited in Turkmenistan, Russia, Turkey, Belarus, India, and through international cultural programs, and her works are held in museums and private collections in several countries. Now living in Belarus, she continues to create works shaped by the visual and historical world of Central Asia.

Many of Akmuradova’s paintings evoke the ancient landscapes surrounding Merv—once one of the great cities of the Silk Road—and the caravans, desert routes, architecture, and cultural memory of the region. Although she has exhibited extensively in Central Asia and beyond, her work remains little known to American audiences. The Karga Collection is honored to introduce her paintings to a wider audience in the United States.