By Heidi Trautmann

First of all I would like to congratulate the organisers to the new venue ‘Art Rooms at the House’, that are Erbil Arkin, chairman of Arkin Group, who made the venue available to art but also to the curators of the present exhibition Oya Silbery and Özge Ertanin, both artists themselves who – they told me some time ago – were searching to do some more than just do art in their studios, they want give Cypriot art a push. Erbil Arkin says quite rightly that the most efficient method of preventing people from becoming desensitized is through artistic production. Artists and their works are a reflection of society. I agree with him totally.

It is the second exhibition in this new Girne venue, the first one was with art work by Oya Silbery herself, and this second one by Bahar Cirali is a continuation of making our younger generation of artists go more public. I like Bahar’s work very much, she is a fresh wind in our society and most active in the sense of Erbil Arkin’s words. She is not established, she is free, what a good thing. It is her third exhibition after she came back home and founded ‘ARTTERAPI’ (Read my article 389 on my website – The road to self-esteem and personal growth). Bahar is a very versatile artist and enjoys experimenting. The present exhibition is a retrospective of her work between 2005 – 2012, some of it I knew but not in the original. I like the idea to have just one theme and go along with it with different techniques, from charcoal, ink and pencil drawings, colour sketches right to big paintings. Walking along all the pictures displayed you get the feeling that she must have had the music loud to be totally relaxed for the action ahead of her.

It is only a year ago that we met at her art studio and talked and she granted me a good look into her inner self. Bahar shies away from rules and established order, she sees no place for her in such conditions, she needs life, as normal and wild as possible… not perfect… would rather be the word: here an exerpt of our interview…

“In 2009 I went to London, UK, worked as a private art tutor and part time in a bakery, haha, don’t laugh, back to childhood memory, and at the same time did my master’s degree on expressive techniques and art therapy in Rome, Italy. First travelling to and fro but then moving back to Rome to finalize my Masters, it had become too much for me. Why I did go to London?  It is a valuable experience but in that year I was not very creative myself; London is so organized in my eyes, there is nothing for me to change, no black holes, no obvious highs and lows; so I felt myself at peace; with Italy it was different, it shook me and it made me creative, just as Cyprus, places that are not perfect, full of problems, you understand?”

I understand very well. Some artists need to be needed and their artistic eye sees the problems more clearly.

With other words you can only discover your inner self when you have to fight for new insights and ways; that is also why Bahar makes the effort to work endlessly on one theme because there are so many sides to it. Movement and colour is obviously the question she was working on in those works displayed at the ARTROOMS.

She had done her Masters at S.I.P.E.A (Società Italiana di Psicologia Educazione e Artiterapie) - Master of Art Therapy and Expressive Techniques in Rome/Italy but decided to come back to Cyprus.

“The art scene in Western Europe has become very commercial, for example, the galleries were asking me if I intended to get pregnant before they would make any investments in my representation. You would have to paint in the interest of the gallery to meet the taste of their customers, but a big no, I would not give up my individualism, you see? So I went back to Cyprus, to Kyrenia and opened my “Artterapi” Centre.”

And  here is her philosophy of life: “I understand while I go”, that is her way of living, sharing; not being hindered by judging if it is the right step, It is the doing that comes first for her, or throwing in all her being into a project ahead of her, one of it is life!

The exhibition at Art Rooms in the House and Garden (opposite Colony Hotel) is still open until July 17.