Born in 1968 in Bakou, Azerbaïjan, Niyaz Najafov is a self-taught painter who channels his existential anguish into art. Najafov believes he was born an artist and his life has been about making sense of the world around him through the eyes of an artist.
Like Raoul Dufy, he paints hundreds of flowers. He paints endlessly with oil some roses in improbable vases on any support he can find. Virtuoso in colour, he works with brushstroke effects in a figurative manner. The musicality of his work is due to the pictorial and figural aspects of his painting.
He paints also landscapes and figures. His portraits are raw, crude and sophisticated at the same time. As said the art critic Lorenzo Belenguer: "Very much along Francis Bacon's line of style. However, as soon as he grabs your attention, one discovers a departure from the old master and Bacon becomes his starting point".
Niyaz Najafov represented his country at the 53th Biennial in Venice (2009).