27 August – 15 Septemper 2014, Palmarina
Belkıs Balpınar’s minimalist artkilims were hard to forget when I first saw them in 1995 in MR Gallery in İstanbul. Whether she calls herself a designer or an artist does not matter; I think of her as one of the rare Turkish artists who works with shapes and texture with the precision she seeks after. The precision in her work makes her come close to a designer, while her involvement with space, universe, or particles or cells of living beings, in short, every basic element of life that she is after, makes her an artist.
Her knowledge of the traditional Turkish kilims, colors, shapes and symbolism along with the workmanship may lead one to see the connection between the tradition and its interpretation, but I think Belkıs has done even better: she has put her knowledge into her interpretation to discover movements and shapes in the universe in her kilims and felt objects in a contemporary approach.
It is possible to hastily classify Balpınar’s works with the Op or Minimalist Movements of l970’s if one does know her interest in quantum physics and cosmological discoveries and her past research on the history of Anatolia and its traditional materials of expression carpets and kilims. Like the Op artists she has described space and movement with lines, but she has gone further, using fewer lines to express volume. The linear but holistic quality is a track of the movement going inward or coming out of the surface. The ever changing, widening or narrowing lines or areas make the viewer to feel the movements in the cosmos with which Belkıs connects us.
No matter how one responds to her kilim or felt pieces, it is possible to see the planes in some of her work change relative to the standing point of the viewer. She invites us to discover the extra dimensions hidden in the shapes and textures in her pieces.
The minimalist approach in her last works with the woof ‘set of wets’ left unwoven becomes more evident while creating a feeling that the forms and lines are woven into the space rather than on a surface.
Prof. Tomur Atagök
You can visit the exhibition in Mine Art Gallery at Bodrum Palmarina until September 15, 2014.
OPENING: 27 AUGUST 2014 WEDNESDAY, 19.00
Mine Art Gallery Yalıkavak Palmarina
Yalıkavak, Palmarina No: D105 Merkez Mah. Çökertme Cad. Bodrum / Muğla
T: +90 (536) 553 50 66