In April 29, Galerie Michael Schultz will present the exhibition Sun Road by Turkish artist of Kurdish origin, Ahmet Güneştekin in Berlin.
Sun Road manifests Güneştekin's talent in a variety of mediums, from optic and dimensional paintings and patchwork quilts to his most recent forays in sculpture, and shows the way he imagines ancient elements of mythologies and religions in an acutely intricate and bright context. The exhibition will continue through May 20.
Combining mixed media items like concave mirrors and metal cages with optical illusions and color gradients, Güneştekin forges a unique space steeped in mythologies that have prevailed for centuries. His uses of symbolism influenced by ancient mythologies and religions and his treatment of iconography of objects make his art simultaneously ancient and modern. From his interventions into patchwork quilts to his hybrid use of metal and mirrors in wall reliefs and optic paintings, Sun Road gives focus to different chapters of his artistic career.
Christoph Tannert identifies the artist's philosophy as follows: "He is able to enclose energy into his art, which is equally effective in the multiplicity of material executions. It shows itself before it is intelligibly comprehended. Its direction of action is consciously designed, although Güneştekin shows no inclination to address clear contents to the audience. Instead, he seems to be interested in preserving his presence what is left unsaid. The basis for this is his special pictorial-artistic statement, with which he conveys the peculiarities as well as myths and modernity of his culture."
Güneştekin's sense of light and color radiates throughout his objects, and it is probably what strikes the eye at first, sometimes making it challenging for the uninitiated to move beyond this luminosity to see the various levels of drawing, figuration, and abstraction that inhabit his objects. If one is to fully absorb the totality of the work in question and the works in patchworks in Sun Road, there is a density to his imagery that requires frequent re-engagement.
Tannert elaborates on his method of quilting and suggests that "in form and composition, they are similar; in the material-specific implementation, they differ, of course. It is interesting that in painting the microstructural aspects of textiles find their resonance, and in the textiles the same level of magic and secrecy as in painting can be seen." By inventing patterns from his lexicon of themes from ancient mythologies, Güneştekin brings into an unprecedented approach into the art of patchwork quilting.
Güneştekin does not only superimpose his patterns and themes into the traditionally sewed quilts but he also intervenes in an extent to reveal the presence of his quality constructing his own voice. They are quilts whose motifs are not very realistic but full of symbolism. The fullness of creative potential, for Güneştekin, lies in breaking loose from geometry, in free variations of colors, forms, materials and creative techniques. Only along this path could the patchwork quilt become the mirror of the present time that provided its inspiration.
In Sun Road, Güneştekin informs the viewer of the convergence of the modern and the traditional and suggests a dialogue between the unchanging and the new. The exhibition will be accompanied with a fully illustrated catalogue and will be open to visit from April 29 to May 20 at Galerie Michael Schultz in Berlin.