“Equestrian” identity is the root of Mongolian culture. Horse is the main theme of works of M. Erdenebayar, a “contemporary” style artist who expresses the original Mongolian way of thinking through showing the equestrian culture.
To the tourist’s question “What will I see when at arrival in Mongolia?” I replied: It is best to lie down on beautiful grass in the endless steppe and look at the infinite horizon. About me, when I started doing my art, it was the time when our society was looking back at its revived, socialized, insular, self-identifying, rewritten history. That was the time when I asked myself an important question: Who am I? Mongolian culture is associated with horses solidly. Later, when a horse became the main subject of my creations, people around would ask me: “Why horse?” The study of horses and interest in them in itself is the original Mongolian culture.
No Mongolian would not be thrilled by the swift running of a beautiful horse. In fact, our Mongolian art has left a very peculiar and rich culture associated with horses.
This culture in itself is an incentive to create art. As an artist, I think a lot about the color preferences of Mongolian people. In clothes, deel, decorations of houses and temples, some warm, oily colors are the most suitable and pleasing to eye. Native color preferences affect the colors and language of my works. In general, all types of art are the same. It’s just the forms through which they are expressed are different. In fact, everything comes out naturally, from within. Just like Western artists, if you explore into them, here the artists become sculptors, and sculptors express themselves in color. In the past, every creator was very specialized, but today people are impacted by the speed of life and availability of information. Therefore, artists do not deviate from the genre in terms of a subject matter, only in terms of the forms of expression of their art. And the contemporary art contemplates more freedom. It can be anything, it can be done with anything. People’s mentality has become contemporary. People are attracted to things that are not similar. This also affects artists.Every day the use of horses becomes less relevant, unnecessary. But Mongolians will never part with their horses. Forget about Mongolians, other countries of the world are increasingly turning to their roots as they develop, so, the horse has always been an object of art, and no less today, as I have seen while organizing my exhibitions there.
The more urbanized, the more horse races and hippodromes, for example. Horses connect animals and people, stand in the middle, so to say. Probably the best unitor. The Zanabazar Museum is one of the most beautiful museums in Mongolia, other countries have nothing similar. The most valuable items of Mongolian Buddhist culture and interesting works of the 20th century are kept there. It may seem small from outside, but it is a substantial museum. There is also another museum – our Art Gallery. It is a treasure trove of Mongolian artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. When I am abroad, I am most interested in peoples that have not lost their originality, uniqueness. Only such places leave the best memories. We have a nice feature that we can leave the city and walk into nature in five minutes.
How nice it is to climb on one of the small hills of the Bogd Uul mountain, lie darwin there in the grass. And this mountain itself is located among even more majestic mountains. Fences of gers, patterns and images of animals on the gates are visually appealing to me. My son and I used to take a lot of their pictures. The streets lined with rusty metal are also eye-catching. My art is originally Mongolian and contemporary. Since I gave my heart to create my works, foreigners easily recognize Mongolia in them.
