SAINKHO

Sainko Namtchylak
9.5 x 4.75 inches, oil on wood, 2018

Order to Survive and Öske Cherde (In a foreign land) are two titles Ms. Namtchylak performs live with a trio on a Russian TV channel. No information is given with the two videos on YouTube and I couldn't find the definitive circumstances of the performance either. It appears that the trio backing Namtchylak is the group Tri-O based in Moscow (1990s). The song Order to Survive appears on Namtchylak's album Stepmother City from 2002 while Öske Cherde was first released as a collaboration between Namtchylak and the Tuvan group Huur-Huur-Tu. In the comment section under the Öske Cherde video the song is referred to as Dance of Eagle by one listener. Dance of Eagle also appears on Stepmother City. 

Sainkho Namtchylak is a Tuvan singer who moved to Moscow to study composition and later to Vienna where she is still based. She was born in 1957 in the south of Tuva near the Mongolian border. There she was exposed to the local throat singing traditions, which she mastered, and studied shamanism. The source material for both paintings comes from stills of both YouTube videos superimposed on abstract backgrounds that I produced in series.