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Lot Essay
Gülay Semercioglu weaved thin coloured metal wires to create Purple Circles. Round plates in purple metallic thread overlap into an abstract flower form against a black background. On a wooden plank used as the ground, she stretches taut wire between evenly spaced small crosshead screws. Like dots in a drawing, these screws create outlines and inner lines to give the huge monochrome fields tension and rhythm. More than twenty layers are created from one long piece of metal wire that winds itself around the numerous nails on the ground.
Although Semercioglu feels an affinity to architecture and knows her work has inherited a three-dimensional quality or even sculptural attitude, the artist classifies her pieces as paintings and situates them in the tradition as well as history of painting. Due to this, they are connected to and draw references from various art movements such as Pop-Art, colour-field painting, Minimalism as well as Constructivism.
The material is industrial and the production process requires an exhausting craft, but the result is a glimpse of the sublime that gives the works more than a decorative beauty and requires more than just technical skill. Done using an enduring, labour intensive method, the knitting process resembles a type meditation. Drawing a thin line between the dichotomies of craft - art and artisan - artist, Gülay loves the craft in art and recognizes that labour and hand dexterity are intrinsic parts of her work.
By joining the Eastern tradition of weaving carpets and producing fabrics with visual elements from the western tradition of painting, Semercioglu gives the work not only a postmodern attitude, but also places it in a strong intercultural position.
Although Semercioglu feels an affinity to architecture and knows her work has inherited a three-dimensional quality or even sculptural attitude, the artist classifies her pieces as paintings and situates them in the tradition as well as history of painting. Due to this, they are connected to and draw references from various art movements such as Pop-Art, colour-field painting, Minimalism as well as Constructivism.
The material is industrial and the production process requires an exhausting craft, but the result is a glimpse of the sublime that gives the works more than a decorative beauty and requires more than just technical skill. Done using an enduring, labour intensive method, the knitting process resembles a type meditation. Drawing a thin line between the dichotomies of craft - art and artisan - artist, Gülay loves the craft in art and recognizes that labour and hand dexterity are intrinsic parts of her work.
By joining the Eastern tradition of weaving carpets and producing fabrics with visual elements from the western tradition of painting, Semercioglu gives the work not only a postmodern attitude, but also places it in a strong intercultural position.