The Line of Life”, an awesome exhibition by renowned Turkish artist, Gulay Semercioglu, is taking place at the Gallery Etemad from May 28 until June 24 in Dubai. She has had six solo exhibitions in Istanbul and has also participated in group exhibitions in international cities such as Abu Dhabi, Berlin, Dubai, Hong Kong, New York, Basel, Miami to name but a few.
A converted warehouse space of 10,000 square feet, Gallery Etemad with its state-of-the-art minimalist architecture is specially designed to showcase a series of amazing minimalist pieces, part paintings and part sculptures. These geometric compositions arranged in a grid format are made from non-art materials: Metallic wires, screws and wood.
Born in Istanbul in 1968, Gulay Semercioglu always wanted to be a minimal abstract painter. She was originally trained as a painter but after creating large geometrical abstract paintings, she began to question the use of paint and wanted to work with a material that could reflect light and be touched by the spectator.
The idea of using metallic wires happened several years ago while she was strolling through Istanbul’s Persembe Bazaar. She came across an area of hardware stores that sold an extensive variety of colorful wires and was struck by the beauty of the metallic patterns reflecting the changing lights at different times of the day. Around 2004, she began assembling and weaving multiple layers of thin colored wires stretched on large format wood frames for which she has become famous.
On a wooden plank used as the ground, she weaves taut wires between evenly spaced small crosshead screws. Like dots in a drawing, these screws create outlines and inner lines to give the huge monochrome fields an illusion of movement and rhythm. More than 20 layers are created from one long piece of metal wire that winds itself around the numerous nails on the ground. Microorganisms, simple leaf forms, mountains, water are the subjects of her compositions.
“I feel that the fluid and curvilinear forms and the soft lines I have been using in my paintings have a very close relationship with the biomorphic movement of today’s architecture… I am bringing traditional and modern, crafts and industrial, feminine and masculine face to face and the tension between these concepts are visible” explains Gulay Semercioglu.
Although the material is industrial, the wire-weaving process requires more than just technical skill. Drawing a thin line between craft/art and artisan/artist, Gulay Semercioglu loves the craft in art and acknowledges that labor and hand dexterity are intrinsically part of her work.
Described as screens for contemplation and meditation, these works are perceived differently by each spectator. Unlike a conventional painting where onlookers sees the same image, regardless of their position, when looking at Semercioglu’s works, the appearance on the colored surface changes incessantly according to the time of the day and the viewing position. Even when the artists uses only a single color, the constant changing reflection of the light interacts with the metallic surface giving it continuously different appearances and a quasi kinetic quality.
For more information, please visit:
www.galleryetemad.com
Email: [email protected]
