Zaya’s Steppe Warriors will be opening tonight, at the Shooting Gallery, in less than hour. Make sure to stop by to see the works and hear the sounds of the traditional Mongolian Morin khuur, which a friend of the artist’s will be playing for the reception.

The origin story which Zaya recounted was a beautiful, slightly eerie, tale of a warrior blessed with a winged horse that he would ride nightly to visit his lover across the seas, before returning to battle the next day. One night, a woman who had grown jealous of the beloved’s nightly visits cut the wings from the horse, leaving it to die. When the warrior saw what had happened he was crushed, and mourned for the beast nightly. Out of this mourning and love he carved the Morin khuur from the skull of the horse and used hair from it’s mane as the strings, creating an instrument that would memorialize, if not resurrect, the spirit of his lost companion. The Morin khuur is still strung with horse’s hair to this day, and appears on the World Heritage of Art and Cultural Objects list.

Steppe Warriors, New Works by Zaya
Opening Reception – Saturday, December 15th, 7-11pm
On View Through January 5th, 2024
@Shooting Gallery, 839 Larkin St.
San Francisco, CA 94109