By Heidi Trautmann
Art starts in the head. Art is around us for everybody to pick and make use of it. The sunlight changing the visual properties of an object. Colours to combine in different ways. Stones and sand to use for a sculpture, and collected objects nature created like washed out pieces of wood.
Görkem Muniroğlu was born in Nicosia in 1982. A young man going through art education with emphasis on sculpture at different academies when he finally graduated with masters degree in Art and Media from the University of Westminster. His interest goes beyond what is usually understood as art, that there is a painter with a brush, a sculptor with a hammer and a chisel, a musician with an instrument, an architect with a ruler and a pointed pencil. Görkem is an artist who uses all kind of tools and his senses to create his kind of art. Perhaps it has to do with modern art education?
There was his latest solo exhibition at the EMAA Art Centre (European Mediterranean Art Association) in Nicosia from September 1 to 18. There was no title to it, just contemporary art, and when I entered the exhibition hall I was unconsciously expecting a display of sculptures, because that is what his profession is. No, this young artist Görkem has a wider perception of art, it includes photography, video and music and with his installations he addresses more than one sense of the viewer.
My first impression of the exhibition was: what a well composed display of art work. Every part of it was composed to establish a relation to each other, in one the common level was colour, in the other lines and graphic elements or even a thought. A text was attached to all compositions or installations, and even the text represented a graphic element which had to suit the arrangement.
The small texts were showing his interest and deep concern in nature, environment, his country and the whole world.
Blue red and white
The picture of a bicycle signboard is located in Oxford Street. I would insist on the idea of having this signboard everywhere in Cyprus. It’s a fact that cycling makes your heart stronger, saves you money and helps you to protect the present life conditions for us to keep on living.
Or philosophical thoughts such as these ones:
Do you think he is ugly?
Even if you think that he is ugly he has no awareness of that term or the meaning. Only we human beings got the ability of differentiating the ugly and beautiful. Judgement is not applicable to humans.
New Perspectives
Unusual visions have caused this island to change in a different way and changed its structure. Speaking the same language was not enough to form a culture together. When you live in a bigger city, you come to the realization that different cultures can share the life together. Even it is too hard to put it into practice, we all have to get rid of the idea of racism.
Green and Concrete
You can realize that the green and concrete can look quiet nice together if you look with a different eye. We have this common idea of tree as natural and concrete not so natural. I am not using the word ‘unnatural’ anymore since I have started watching documentaries about space. Even if we have created plastic bottles or built concrete structures consciously, it doesn’t change the fact that their raw resource is still being supplied by our planet Earth. We can mix these elements according to our will. We can’t recreate them. We should be aware of the fact that everything around us was somewhere else before and in a different form.
In the centre of the exhibition hall a manifest for Karpaz, a piece of beach ‘decorated’ with rubbish, and a small sculpture formed of sand.
Karpaz
Karpaz is a place that ‘civilisation’ has started to build up. And I hope that one day this ‘improvement’ will not cover up the real beauty of Karpaz, for the future of our children
One of his photos on display was his auto portrait, a lonely eagle in the blue sky, free to fly, in mind and in body.