By Heidi Trautmann

It is a long way to Famagusta at night to attend the important opening of Gönen Atakol’s big exhibition on 24 March, about her life work from 1967 – 2014, with the organisers and the curator present. So, her friends and some art lovers arranged for bus transportation to be with her on that special evening at the new Famagusta Rauf Denktaş Culture and Congress Centre.

The exhibition was opened by Prof. Dr. Naciye Doratlı, Director at the EMU Centre for Cyprus Studies and Prof Dr. Abdullah Öztoprak, Rector of EMU (Eastern Mediterranean University). A beautiful 150 pages detailed catalogue was available fresh from the printer.

Gönen’s work of altogether over 100 paintings and drawings was elegantly presented in the corridor-like exhibition space of the CCC. Her life story could be read on big tableaux, also detailed comments on her development over the years. Zehra Şonya, (EMAA/European Mediterranean Art Association)  as assistant curator and co-organiser had very sensitively brought together the various stages of over forty years of art work and has created a professional and elegant exhibition. Zehra is one of the initiators of the TC Visual Artists Archive, a long-term project of the Centre of Cyprus Studies.

‘Down the Line … Across and Beyond Borders’ is the title of Dr. Esra Plümer’s study on Gönen Atakol’s work as the curator of the exhibition, art historian and teaching at Norwich University. She has been visiting the artist in her residence in Kyrenia and watched her working on one of her latest paintings: “…unlike the conventional image of ‘the artist’ Atakol does not have a studio. Rather than isolating the act of production to a single space, she chooses to remain involved in her daily life whilst working in multiple areas; in her current space, only a narrow wall divides the space of life and creativity, all of which share the common view of the Mediterranean Sea….” Esra continues: “The use of geometric shapes, like the ‘square’, dates back to Atakol’s days as an art student at the Pennsylvania State University….Atakol’s exposure to American art, mainly abstract Expressionism and Minimalism is highly recognizable in nearly all her paintings.”

From the short introduction to Esra Plümer’s article we can deduce some main characteristics of Gönen Atakol as an artist and personality: Her closeness to daily life - her love for the Mediterranean Sea - Abstract Expressionism - Minimalism; I can confirm that; she needs people around her, the noise of normal life, her family; she loves working in a group, and still, she creates a space around her where she retires into herself and deeply concentrates. Gönen Atakol has a very clear view of things and people are very important to her and from her observations she deducts the superfluous and focuses on the essential.

That was so in her early years as an art student at the University of Pennsyvania where she learnt freedom in art and experienced the American understanding of art in those years, and that is so today. Dr. Esra Plümer has made some important statements on her development since 1967 to today, the geometric shapes of the early years, the well composed,  but very loose figurative drawings in water colour, ink and pencil and finally the clear line drawing in her graphical works with fat markers, clear colours and concentration on composition where the pattern of a shawl or of the lace on an undershirt becomes an important part of her work.

For the interview we conducted for my book ‘Art and Creativity in North Cyprus’ we spoke of her love for her country: “When I came back to Cyprus in 1972 I realised how much I missed the pure air and intensity and brightness of pure colours. It has influenced my work since and often the impressions were so overwhelming that I introduced window frames into my paintings in order to focus on just a certain amount of it.” The place she lives in with her husband with the sea as a companion day and night, gives her a never ending inspiration of colours and movement.  “For me, it is so overwhelming with a plethora of variation,  that I have to break them down, peel away the extraneous, to bring out the pure and essential offering of light and colour. In order to transpose my feelings triggered by the experience, I have to destroy before I can build up; only in the serenity of abstraction, do I find myself confirmed.”

The exhibition will still be on until 14 May 2014, viewing times are weekdays from 09.00 to 19.00 hrs.

It would be an essential experience for students in fine arts, graphic and communications, to see this exhibition to learn from the art work of one of the important artists in the TRNC; art teachers should make them aware of it and join them as well. Art has no borders and as Gönen uses to say: There is no right and wrong in the arts! And I am adding:  as long as the tools are properly understood, and the eyes have learnt to see.