“We go round the world, meeting so many people. Then you leave them behind hoping to see them again. Reptiles stand for friendship, and working with tiles will always stay with me no matter where I go. This is why my exhibition is called ‘repTILES on the run’,” says Doris Bandera.She has been in Turkey for seven years and is about to return to her hometown of Vienna. Her painted ceramic tiles are largely influenced by the theme of “coming and going,” including the pieces that were on show last week at the Hilton Hotel in Ankara.
Bandera combines traditional İznik ceramic tiles, known as “çini” in Turkish, with modern colors and figures although there is a traditional element in all her creations. “Çini is an old Turkish tradition, and when I started six years ago I was only copying its old forms, but I have tried to modernize it a little bit, although you will always find an old element there. Sometimes I introduce a large picture [amongst the traditional motifs], for example,” she told Today’s Zaman, adding that the traditional İznik color palette is blue and white but that she has been using other colors such as yellow and green.
Bandera, a dressmaker by profession, has developed her artistic knowledge and feeling for different cultures over the last 15 years in Venezuela, South Korea, Italy and Turkey.
“We have been away from home for 15 years, but it was nice and I enjoyed it and now I am taking çini home with me,” she said. She added that she buys her raw materials from Kütahya, but when she was in Venezuela, she learned how to make pottery and then became interested in çini when she came to Turkey. “I attended a çini course. At the beginning we were just copying whatever had been done before, but step by step I tried to develop it,” she said.
Sometimes it is a little bit difficult for Bandera to say goodbye to what she produced. “Sometimes I use the items and sell them later. I keep them for myself for a while. Somehow it is difficult to give them up. But after a while it’s OK for me,” she said, inviting all those who are interested to her home in Ankara to see her work.
Bandera underlined that she will continue to produce çini in Austria, where she has already rented a workshop. “I will continue over there, I am taking the kiln with me that I bought in Kütahya,” she said.
