ART UNITES – Two Art
Exhibitions in both halves of Nicosia – Rüya Resat and Anna Kakoulli - two
artists and friends without limits
By Heidi Trautmann
Rüya Reşat left us in June 2011, we were all shocked, she was only 47
years old. I had met her in 2009 for the interview which you can read hereafter.
Hülya, her sister and her family, have kept Rüya’s studio – not far away from
the Parliament – and plan to establish it for good as an art museum. It has
been left as it was. Hülya organised the two latest art exhibitions together
with an artist friend of Rüya, Anna Kakoulli, with some of their work. The two
artists have done several art exhibitions together, in Cyprus and in Bruxelles,
the last one being ‘Reminiscences’.
I have met Anna on the occasion of a TV documentary film in Deutsche
Welle, we were asked to do with a German film maker who had come here to
collect impressions on the divided city and on what level artists from both
sides talk to each other, what interests them and how they work together. Read
my text on her solo exhibition in 2014 and some information on her curriculum.
The exhibition of 2016 were both in June, some days at the Famagusta
Gate in the Old City in the South and the second at the Eaved House in Nicosia
North which closed just this last weekend on July 02. Large sized paintings and
prints of Rüya’s digital art showed what I wrote in my interview. Rüya’s
philosophy is remarkable, a freethinker and I kept one of her sentences in my
mind and use it occasionally just like I prefer to use quotes and proverbs because
they close down right to the point and one must not use many words…..Art starts
in one’s head and not at the tip of the brush… so true isn’t it?
Whenever the little studio museum of Rüya comes to life and opens its
doors for some hours a week to the public, I will let my readers know. There is
some spirit there….
Rüya REŞAT
Graphic designer and painter
born in Nicosia in 1964
NOUVEAU
- NEW in the 21st Century
The entrance to Rüya Reşat's house is the
colour of sunshine, a warm yellow. A typical Cypriot house in the heart of a
residential area in Nicosia. The door is open, in the doorframe Rüya in a light
dress full of summer flowers. I am invited in and the sunshine follows us into
high rooms, the walls of each room in a different colour, warm and earthy. On
these walls her art work, and all of a
sudden I ask myself: Does the sunshine come from outside or is it already
present in this house's rooms through the paintings? A sort of enchantment
envelops me, I feel light and free to fly, weightless. I turn around and look
at this young woman, into her open eyes; she smiles as though she has expected
the viewer's reaction.
We switch from English to French, a
language she is more fluent in since she has lived in France since her
university years until only two years ago. Speaking French changes her whole
body language, her appearance, ...elle est une vraie Française! Now she devides
her life between Paris and Nicosia. “My family lives here, you know. My
childhood was a very special one, already then I had my own fantasy world which
I found in nature. In our garden I often hid when too much was happening around
me, and to be with my friends the insects, cats, flowers and birds. There was a
cockerel in our backyard that everybody was afraid of but we were best friends,
most probably we understood each other in a language of our own. I still have
this tendency today; I feel the need to find myself in nature.” Do we ever stop
trying to find ourselves, I ask.
Rüya takes me through the house over a
beautiful marble floor through to the last room the walls of which are painted
in a velvety bordeau red; she disappears behind a curtain of beads to make us
some Turkish coffee. The room is very French: l'art de vivre. One has to live
art, not only make it. A beautiful composition in itself; the heavy writing
desk with art literature on it, the light coming in from a window behind,
creating a pattern on the opposite wall combining with two exciting paper
collages of Rüya's in the same red; they seem to come right out of the wall.
Thrown over a stand is a lovely woven red rug, and next to a red chair, a bowl
of fruit glowing against the dark wall. Here I will take your photo, I say, you
as part of the composition, in a red dress. Rüya laughs.
“I don't accept rules; rules, conventions, they only prevent us from
discovering ourselves. During our life we get suffocated with them, as we grow
up, they are like parasites, and it takes us most of our active time to uncover
our core, the core of things. We humans are only a tiny part in nature, a link
in the chain.” I agree to that, but isn't it the artist and creative individual
who realises the heavy burden of rules? And does the development of an
independently thinking mind not involve this process of getting rid of the
unnecessary and unwanted. Is it not so?
“I am very grateful that I had the
opportunity to study in France, which was the logical step to take since my
elder sister studied modern literature in Paris. In this spiritual centre of
Europe where the heart of creative activity beats, I grew to appreciate the
absolute freedom of thinking and working.
Also, French people love to discuss the things they do “..Je pense, donc
je suis...” which is also a necessity to me. Here in Nicosia, I have cooperated
with the French Cultural Centre which again this year has developed a
three-months-programme with individual cultural events. Within this framework,
I have exhibited my latest art work at Bellapais Abbey where I will give proof
of the level of reality I have found for
myself, a fantasy world of memories and the endless universe between the real
and the virtual.”
We wander along the walls and I literally
plunge into her latest big-formatted creations, a world of endless depth, of
light and transparency, dance of luminiscent colours. An intoxicating shower, a
whirlwind of beauty in water colour and dry pastel. Then, photos assembled and
digitally processed, dreamlike figures gliding through the atmosphere of
universe as part of melting stars, taken from the depth of our memories and
dreams and documented here.
In which category of art would she put
herself, I ask. “There is only one word to describe my art, and that is NOUVEAU
– NEW. I constantly renew myself. I graduated from Ecole Nationale Superièure
des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1993 and had a one-year doctoral research at
Sorbonne University on Esthetic and Science of Art at DANAE-Centre of Artistic
Research. Since that time I have worked on digital designs, paintings, graphic
designs and other creative projects. With the new possibilities of tools such
as digital processing, the door was open to look for new ways in art.” In
answer to that I have to confess that I have never been introduced to these
ways of digital creation and am fascinated. “But,” she says, “art still happens
in the head, also in digital art which to me is nothing but a tool; the
definition of colours and forms are my fingerprints and my reality, the art
work is entirely mine. The “birth” of a picture, be it digital or any other
technique like water colours, comes naturally, just as a human being is born
with its genes. My inspirations accumulate and form a life of their own, open
to development, no finite thoughts, you understand? Or, to put it more simply:
I translate the fragments of feelings, dreams into visual perception.”
To do that one must be absolutely free and
sure of oneself. “Oh yes, I have strong roots, my world of thoughts and
experiences are the firm base of my being. I need that. I love sharing though,
sharing with people of my wavelength, and seeing what they have to say, giving
and taking. In this way you develop, sorting out what is important for you,
always trying to be true to yourself.”
I want to come back to one picture, its execution
reminded me of Art Nouveau, of the
Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, and Rüya exclaimed: “But that is true, I made
with this very picture an homage to him, because I love his decorative art work
very much, but in my visions I am much more stimulated by the surrealistic
movement!” As in some of her other paintings she has introduced the transparent
beauty of insect wings: she uses everything to make visible the delicate
interconnections of our soul and nature. Perhaps our souls have the same
delicate wings?
Every room in this house is a separate
studio with a big working table and there are works obviously done by children.
“I spend part of my time teaching children between ages of eight and twelve.
This is a big source of pleasure. They are still unspoilt, innocent and open to
free thinking. I also prepare young students for university abroard, for their
competitive exams. I try to teach them to break open their barriers, to let fly
their fantasy, to form their individuality.” Who was her art teacher when she
was that age, I ask her. “Gönen Atakol at the Maarif College.” I had suspected
as much. The words “free development of the mind” sounded very familiar to me.
How important it is to have a good teacher supporting the formation of the
tender plant of individualism.
Rüya had just come back from an important
exhibition entitled “Reminiscences” at the European Union Committee of the
Regions in Brussels together with the Greek Cypriot painter Anna Kakoulli. The
project had its own way of marking 2008 as the European Year of Intercultural
Dialogue. Before that she has had various exhibitions in Paris, Luxembourg,
Istanbul, Cyprus and Athens. Having been away from her home country for so
long, how does she feel about the development in art here, I ask her.
“There have been tremendous changes here, I
can feel the pulsating life of creativity and I am going to take an active part
in it, you can be sure of that. My way will develop automatically, the scope of
visual and subconscious streams are right at our fingertips. Il n'y a jamais un
point final! There is never to be a final stop!
Author's
Note: The interview was done in June 2008
Mar 31 - Apr 15: Art Exhibition
Anna Kakoulli in Art Gallery OPUS 39 Nicosia
3/30/2014
Anna KAKOULLI
Born ın Nıcosıa
Art Exhibition ‘Beyond
Seasides’
The unfamiliar as a stimulus and source of inspiration is at the heart of
the new work by Anna Kakoulli. Fact and fiction intertwine within her
illustrated settings in a way that make it possible for her to penetrate into
the sensitive zone between familiar and unfamiliar. These are places to escape
to from the present that have emerged out of relationships with others, but
also with herself.
Anna Kakoulli was born in Nicosia, Cyprus. From 1983-1990 she studied at
the Moscow Academy of Fine Arts ΄Surikof΄. She graduated with a Masters degree
in Painting and Monumental Painting. To date she has had seven solo exhibitions
in Cyprus, two in Athens, in Finland and in New York. She has had three
exhibitions with Rouja Resat, a Turkish Cypriot painter, in Nicosia, Limassol
and Brussels. She has also participated in group exhibitions in Cyprus, Greece
and France.
Exhibition opening on Monday, 31 March 2014 at 7.30 p.m.
Opening Hours
Monday: 17.00 - 20.00
Tuesday – Friday: 10.30 - 12.30 & 17.00 - 20.00
Saturday: 10.30 - 12.30
When
Monday through Saturday
From: Monday, March 31st, 2014
Until: Tuesday, April 15th, 2014
Time: See Description
Where
Opus 39
21
Kimonos Street
Strovolos, Nicosia 2006, Cyprus
Email: mango2@cablenet.com.cy
Phone:
22424983