Abay Bazar village, Keles district, South Kazakhstan region 1942-1995

(1942, Abai – 1995, Almaty) Rysbek Akhmetov was a Kazakh sculptor known for his small-scale sculptures in salt-glazed clay, blending simple silhouettes and forms with a rusty texture to express folk and national stories. He was a graduate of the Tashkent Art School and the Ostrovsky Institute of Theater and Art in the same city. Drawing on Kazakh folk imagery, Akhmetov brought the subjects of family life, the steppe, and daily rituals into contemporary visual language, clay reminding of the warmth of the sun in the dried steppe. His repertoire, rich in portraiture and characters from boys on horsebacks to donkeys, from heroes of fairy tales to epics, radiates warmth and gentle humour. In Qonaqtar, pieces such as Melody of the Steppe embody a national motive of a dombra player on the horse, the Five Brothers, Motherhood, and Family emphasise the importance of family, but are also playful in its depiction, while in Dream the essence of the carefree childhood is captured. Simplicity and minimal detail, he believed, invited the viewer to become a co-author, thinking through the image rather than being told what to see.