What to See at Dashi Namdakov’s “Ink” Exhibition at Noôdome

At the Noôdome community space, part of the RBC Visionaries project, an exhibition by artist and sculptor Dashi Namdakov is taking place.

The exhibition, titled Ink, features works from a series of the same name inspired by Chinese calligraphy. This ancient Eastern tradition, which interprets the line not as a contour but as a carrier of energy and meaning, merges in Namdakov’s works with Western academic drawing. The figures appear and seem to dissolve on the surface, becoming traces of movement—whether of a brush or of air.

The artist’s full name, Dashinima, translates from Buryat as “lucky sun” or “bright sun,” and his art is deeply connected with nature and its elements. “My perception of beauty was formed in early childhood, when as children we gathered around a fire in the steppe and looked up at the black sky filled with shining stars,” Namdakov says. “This is harmony—the only law of the universe.”

Born in a small village in Transbaikalia into a family of a blacksmith and an artist, he observed from an early age how his father painted Buddhist thangkas (scroll icons), created sculptures and wood carvings, and wove carpets. Dashi grew up in a world inhabited by all kinds of spirits and fantastical creatures, which later took on material form in his art.

Today, the artist works with equal ease across intimate graphic works, large-scale sculptures, land art objects, and small sculptural forms.

At the exhibition opening on March 5, visitors to Noôdome were also able to see Namdakov’s new steel sculptures over the course of a single evening. In them, as in his other media, he constructs a mythology where ethnic motifs intertwine with his own imagery. His sculptures seem not to be confined to a fixed form but to be in constant transformation. In mask-like faces or elongated, flowing animal bodies, the man-made and the natural principles both oppose and harmonize with one another.

Polished metal surfaces and richly colored patinated forms enhance the sense of duality: smoothness coexists with ruptures, wholeness with cracks, and sculptural completeness with a hint of movement. Perhaps it is in these nuances and half-tones that the essence of his art lies.