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Magic of İstanbul on canvas, engravings in new exhibition
The color blue is dominant in Binzet’s work, together with touches of purple, green and pink. “I am actually a landscape artist. I produce works on other places, too, but my love of İstanbul comes to the fore. When I painted London’s gray, foggy and rainy streets with blues, greens, pinks and yellows, my instructors were very surprised and called me a ‘multicolor Mediterranean painter’,” Binzet recalls in an interview with Today’s Zaman.
İstanbul is the city Binzet was born and grew up in, and she endeavors to reflect it as it appears in her childhood memories, with old houses along the Bosporus and street cats and birds occupying every corner, she explains. “I aimed to depict the magic of my old İstanbul,” she adds.
Binzet received her artistic education at the İstanbul Academy of Fine Arts and graduated from Nurullah Berk’s workshop in 1967. She received a scholarship from the British Council in 1978 and studied painting and engraving at the City and Guilds of London Art School. “My education in London was more focused on application and had a comparatively freer system. I learned all the printing techniques there. I painted in the streets and in botanical gardens. My research subject was British landscape art and artists,” Binzet explains.
Although the works in the exhibition are on the same theme, Güray’s part of the show reflects a different approach as the artist has used surreal depictions of the city’s landmarks in her paintings.
Apart from the subject matter, another shared point in the show is the use of engravings. “[Güray] reflects her dream of İstanbul based on old engravings on her canvases, while I depict my own observations through engravings,” Binzet explains.
Two years ago Güray started to do research on old İstanbul engravings and designed her 18-piece collection using the texture of these old engravings and combining them with her own surrealist style. In most of her paintings, the figure of a fish attracts the viewer’s attention. She began to use the fish figure in 1996. “In my earlier work, I was using human and fish figures together, and in time, the human figures transformed into fish figures. The symbol of the fish has many historic and religious dimensions,” she says, underlining that she wanted to highlight the historic texture of İstanbul.
Güray also explains that she aimed to create the feeling that İstanbul is “like antique jewelry and may fade away in time unless its beauty is protected.” She emphasizes, “I also questioned the position of the individual in the universe and merged this theme with the subject of İstanbul in a surreal way.” Having graduated from the İstanbul State Academy of Fine Arts (now the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts) industrial design and interior architecture departments in 1982, she chose to express herself through the medium of painting following her university education.
The exhibition will run through Jan. 16 at the Yetenek Art Center in Taksim. For further information, visit www.yeteneksanatmerkezi.com
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