Mels Akynbekov is the closest to the creative program of B. Jumabaev. He turned to the memories of his childhood spent in the mountains and created several talented works in which he demonstrated a keen sense of composition, decorative use of color, and a profound understanding of the laws of constructing Kyrgyz ornamentation. His best work, "In the Alai-Ku Valley" (1969), provides a generalized image of high-altitude Kyrgyzstan with an indispensable attribute: a pasture covered like velvet with a lush carpet of grass, a yurt with a smoking hearth, a flock of sheep, and steep mountain peaks with clouds clinging to them. In the foreground, a static group is depicted, composed like an ornament into a dense pattern, where no element can be removed or shifted. The scene depicting a woman treating the elders with kumys is almost ritualistic, and combined with the landscape, it resonates as a symbol of the unchanging characteristics of Kyrgyz national life over hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years. In a certain sense, this painting can be viewed as a historical canvas, capturing something quite significant that still exists in the everyday life of the people. The fact that the artist did not gather natural materials for this painting has its own logic, as the refusal from studies enhanced the conventionality of the artistic language and the subjectivity of the pictorial image, purified from modern domestic details.
The image painted from nature possesses the quality of representing the depicted world in its momentary existence, which in this case hindered the artist when portraying the past, as it was necessary to maintain a sense of temporal distance.
In the painting "My Mothers" (1970), two sitting women, a young one and an old one, with a boy playing at their feet, are depicted in close-up, even more statically than in the group of the painting "In the Alai-Ku Valley." The background features an ail located at the foot of the hills. The artist seems to be gazing into his childhood, into the dear features of loved ones, stopping movement and bringing closer both his native places and the people inhabiting them. The painting is executed in a warm palette, with the plasticity of the figures, houses, and walls, the contours of which convey the contrast of southern midday light and shadow, emphasized by vigorous drawing.
