Anna Laudel Contemporary presents a solo exhibition, titled "Un-Weave" by the acclaimed artist Belkıs Balpınar who has pioneered the art of weaving in Turkey and is considered to be one of the most inventive practitioners of the "art kilim" ("kilim" meaning "rug" in Turkish) medium within and beyond Turkey's borders.
Balpınar is known to be the first name in Turkey to produce contemporary art works by using traditional weaving techniques. She has been producing works using the traditional rug texture inspired by scientific themes including different spatial fields like microcosmos, macrocosmos, quantum physics and galaxies. These themes are also her subject of study. Balpınar expresses that the books she has been reading in the field of physics and astronomy have been the main sources of her inspiration.
Balpınar also investigates the theoretical and practical aspects of perception both as a scholar and an artist. She treats the forms she creates on the rug texture as a reflection of the movements in the space and gives depth to her works by adding motifs on plain rug warps.
Belkıs Balpınar
Her motifs touch upon the relationship between space and the unlimited aspect of shadows, which also adds dimension to her works. The artist states that, Albert Einstein's theory, which claims the existence of the fourth dimension through space and time, has had a great effect on herself and her production. Thus, she produces works reflecting the contribution of science to arts and culture.
Balpınar points out that contemporary artists are more focused on the current chaos and issues of the world while she is interested in the essence of our being, looking from a relatively more universal point of view and states that "The world that human beings created is very complicated. However, in the billion-galaxy and billions of stars, we see a regularity and order which is a result of our perception of time. Many artists try to find and reflect on something from the chaos throughout the world. Yet, I try to capture images that imply spaces created by the movements of the galaxies and planets in the microstate, or particles in the micro-space that seem more ordinate in regard to our understanding of time."
"Quanta Felt," 145x125 cm.
Today, there are many internationally recognized textile artists across the world including countries where there is no tradition of textile. On the contrary, Turkey is one of the centers for textile weaving, which is known with its tradition of characteristic rugs and kilims.
Still, the application of weaving does not reflect on the field of contemporary art. In this regard, Balpınar is one of the prominent figures of this field who has developed and applied modern ideas to various weaving techniques. Over the years, she has created a new technique of weaving which she calls "un-weaving," which means weaving the first plane and leaving the background untouched. By this way she discovered that the forms existing in space are better expressed and also it creates a three-dimensional pictorial plane that can be seen as a form of woven painting.
About the artist
After graduating from the Textile Department of Istanbul Fine Arts Academy, Balpınar worked as a curator at the Carpet Department of Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum and as the founding director of Istanbul Foundations' Carpet Museum. Since 1986, the artist has been known as the pioneer of the field called "art kilim" with her works made by using the traditional rug texture in a contemporary context, inspired by different spatial planes of earth and microcosm.
As a researcher and writer, Balpınar has written books and articles regarding rugs and carpets, and also gives conferences in this field both in Turkey and abroad. Balpınar, who designed the pieces of rugs for the entrance walls of the World Bank building in Washington D.C. and entrance walls of the Aramco Center in Saudi Arabia, Zahran, also had exhibitions in Istanbul, Ankara, New York, Princeton, Washington D.C., Stockholm, Caracas, Milan, Tokyo, Ljubljana, Moscow and Bahrain. In addition, the artist has participated in group shows such as the Modernist Exhibition in New York and the Art Basel Miami Art Fair.
Some of the special collections that feature Balpınar's works are Miuccia Prada in Milano, the World Bank in Washington D.C. and the Bernard Chappard in New York. Balpınar has been living and working in Bodrum since 2006.
