Artist: Daud Akhriev

 

Dimensions: 18.5' x 9'

 

The painting is done in oils on a hand-loomed linen canvas imported from Belgium.

 

The linen is stretched over a kiln-dried poplar stretcher-bar frame, designed and constructed by master builder Jim Morrow. Without canvas and paint, the stretcher itself weighs over 400 pounds.

Over 15 pints of oil paint were used to create the artwork which took 18 months to complete.

 

The frame is made of aged Tennessee walnut with gold leaf on the inside lip. Morrow also built the frame, designed by the artist and Morrow together.

 

The main theme of the painting is “Wedding Feast at Cana,” with Jesus in the foreground in the process of turning water into wine. Behind that scene is the wedding feast itself, with musicians, servants, guests, and the newlywed couple.

 

Other miniature scenes from scriptural history are in the landscape: the second coming, the nativity, Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden, Moses, the resurrection, the crucifixion, the New Jerusalem, Christ being laid in the tomb, and the 12 apostles. The miracle itself and the Bible cameos are crowned by Revelation’s three angels playing trumpets against a background of billowing Oriental draperies.

 

1. Second Coming

2. Three Angels

3. The Crucifixion

4. New Jerusalem

5. Christ into the Tomb

6. The Apostles

7. Ascension

8. Jesus' Baptism

9. Nativity

10. First Sin

11. Moses

12. Bride and Groom

13. The Orchestra

14. Mary

15. Levi

16. Jesus

17. Peter

18. Abraham

 

The painting was completed in a room of the Collegedale Church with a vaulted 18' ceiling. To remove the painting from the room, the windows were taken out and the painting was carried over the second story roof to the ground, and then around the building where the main entry doors were large enough to admit it into the Atrium.

 

Born in 1959, Daud Akhriev is married to artist Melissa Hefferlin, a Collegedale native whom he met while they were both studying at the Repin Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1991. Daud accompanied Melissa to the United States later that same year.

 

Daud’s nationality is Ingushi, a people from the northern Caucasus Mountains, between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Ingushi worldwide population is approximately three million, and they have an indigenous language which is not traceable to major language groups.