Shahnaz AghayevaMutual gratitude (2023)

In ‘Mutual gratitude’, the woman’s grounded physical form conveys the weight of labor and duty. Her head, reduced to a faint outline with barely a suggestion of a nose, recedes into the composition – more a landscape detail than a marker of identity. In contrast to the presence of her body, it holds no prominence, stripped of facial features or expression. Carrying a bucket of water, the woman becomes a symbol of unacknowledged effort and daily sacrifice. The recurring presence of the cow and the tree in the background reinforces the idea that her sense of self is shaped by the beings and places to which she devotes herself. She exists both as subject and object within the narrative – defined by the love she shares.