22 Nov 2010

Nihat Kemankasli: Nihat's World at Berlin Art Projects

SOLO EXHIBITION AT BERLIN ART PROJECTS
NIHAT'S WORLD BY NIHAT KEMANKASLI
NOVEMBER TO DECEMBER 2010

OPENING FRIDAY | 19 NOVEMBER 2010 | 19 - 21 | PROJECT SPACE | AUGUSTSTRAßE 50 B | 10119 BERLIN

Berlin Art Projects are delighted to invite you to the opening of the solo exhibition by Nihat Kemankasli on Friday, 19 November, 19-21. The gallery is putting on this young Turkish artist's first solo exhibition in Germany, entitled 'Nihat's World'.

Intense, brash, and head-on – the paintings by Nihat Kemankasli attract attention and amplify the two-dimensionality of the picture. The large-sized canvases depict everyday objects completely without disguise: landscapes and beach scenes, beach houses and boats, interiors (inclusive of ironing board and toilet), chairs, clothes, and - again and again - beds in which lies the figure of a woman. In his work the artist employs the simplest graphic elements to create 'scenes from the bedroom' where the surreal and childlike meet and decoration and geometry merge. The bed, seen from above, is the object which organises and dominates the surface of each canvas. This bed, sometimes occupied, sometimes empty, is surrounded by decorative, ornamental elements which intensify the dreamlike impression rendered by repetition. The intimacy and the erotic which accompany the bed as an object, while not expressed overtly, are evoked by Playboy icons.

But Kemankasli isn't just painting beds: his bedroom scenes are an examination of painting itself – the depiction of space on the canvas. The space looks two-dimensional in his work, and yet the observer is able to uncover more layers. As in a compressed perspective, every geometrical form refers back to a further level, which hides another. Thus the white canvas never appears as background; instead it is brought to the front by the black line, becoming a shape. The bed also resembles the canvas in its role as a catalyst between reality and fiction. In one single artistic gesture, the artist uses the simplicity of line, surface and colour to create a projection surface for our desires, while simultaneously making reference to the history of painting itself. Through the oriental language of form, which surrounds him, he invokes the lines of the arabesque and the two-dimensional organisation of space. Ever since Matisse, who created a spatial effect through colour and lent it such an autonomous character, this use of colour can be found in western painting as well. Through his paintings, Nihat Kemankasli shows that the history of art is not linear, but rather a history of reference, adoption and altercation.

Nihat Kemankasli (*1971 in Balikesir, Turkey) studied at the University of Fine Arts in Hacettepe. He completed his studies for Prof. Veysel Gnays in 1999. He lives and works in Istanbul, where he teaches Greek mythology, graphic design and fine arts, amongst other things.