This post is also available in:
“Movement within stillness: this is the beating heart of Iskan’s art,
where geometry becomes emotion and color transforms into thought.
Elisa Larese Moro
The art of Iskan Ilyazov, known simply as Iskan, unfolds as a refined exploration of geometric abstraction, where form and color become vessels of emotion and thought.
Born in Tiraspol in 1956 and currently based in Moscow, Iskan is an artist with a deeply international vocation, whose visual language transcends geographical and cultural boundaries. An academician and honored arts personality in Russia, recipient of 18 international awards between 2021 and 2024—including a Grand Prix for Graphic Art—Iskan today stands as a leading figure in contemporary art.
His works, exhibited in over 100 shows across Europe and the United States, are vibrant compositions of color and form that combine expressive energy with structural rigor. Each canvas is a dynamic field of visual forces, where lines, discs, axes, and planes intersect in a calibrated harmony, leaving nothing to chance. Yet what truly sets his work apart is the ability to translate abstraction into a poetic and symbolic narrative: in his paintings, the geometric element is never cold or purely formal, but ignited by emotional intent and a profound communicative urgency.
Iskan’s poetics rests on a fascinating paradox: movement within stillness. This is felt in the internal tension of his compositions, in their chromatic contrasts, and in the recurring presence of the circle—a shape that, for the artist, embodies permanence, cyclicality, and the illusion of progress. Dominated often by warm reds and intense greens, every element in his works vibrates with an energy that defies the surface’s static nature.
A striking example is The Varadero Situation, an acrylic and pastel piece born from the artist’s personal experience in Cuba. Here, the memory of the journey blends with a historical and symbolic reading of the island: the “revolutionary” colors, the solar and vegetal discs, the stylized machetes emerging from the composition—all become visual metaphors for a complex and fiery identity. The canvas comes alive like a gypsy dance, an ode to the vitality and resilience of the Cuban people. Even in this work, the central—almost imperceptible—circle acts as the silent heart of the image, reorganizing the planes and modulating the inner light of the composition.
Ultimately, Iskan’s painting is a form of visual meditation: an invitation to slow down the gaze, to seek in abstraction a trace of the human, to rediscover beauty in the tension between reason and feeling. With a recognizable stylistic signature and profound intellectual coherence, the artist builds a symbolic universe where every work becomes a sensory experience, an aesthetic reflection, and an act of knowledge.
“Movement within stillness: this is the beating heart of Iskan’s art, where geometry becomes emotion and color transforms into thought.”
Se vuoi, posso aiutarti anche con una versione più sintetica o più estesa!
Iskan Ilyazov, known by his artistic name Iskan, was born in 1956 in Tiraspol, Moldova. His artistic and personal journey spans diverse geographies and cultures: after living in Bucharest, he settled in Moscow, where he currently resides and works. He holds citizenship in both the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation.
A prominent figure in the contemporary art scene, Iskan is an Academician of two prestigious Fine Arts Academies, a Professor of Visual Arts, and an Honored Arts Personality of the Russian Federation. Between 2021 and 2024, he achieved significant international acclaim, winning 18 awards, including a Grand Prix for Graphic Art in 2024.
His exhibition career is extensive and cosmopolitan, with over 100 solo and group shows in cities such as Berlin, Venice, Cannes, Milan, Nice, Paris, Rome, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nuremberg, and Barcelona. His works are included in museum and public collections in Minsk, Moscow, Nuremberg, and Florence, as well as numerous private collections across Europe and the United States — including London, Windsor, Cologne, Monaco, Hollywood, and Las Vegas.
Iskan’s style is distinguished by a masterful use of geometric abstraction, creating compositions that balance formal harmony with vibrant chromatic energy. His canvases transcend mere stylistic exercise to become profound inner landscapes where symbolism, philosophy, and introspection intertwine. The artist crafts a universal visual language that communicates harmony, joy, strength, and kindness—a perfect synthesis of thought and feeling.
Through his work, Iskan invites viewers on a journey: an immersion into the emotional geometry of existence, where every color pulses, every shape tells a story, and every composition becomes an act of awareness and beauty.
The Varadero Situation, 2025. 100×80 cm, oil on canvas.