Monday 30 November 2009

early morning musings



Often memory comes unbidden, secreting itself into a painting. But it cannot be forced. And so in my studio yesterday, now wintry and hibernatory, I try and recall something of our visit to the Yorkshire moors in the summer. Three small paintings since, have taken me back there, allowing me to meander delightedly in summer greenth, evoke tree and shape so far removed from the broad expanses of black water and urban sprawl that envelop my daily tread now. So I thought I could lose myself there again, take a meander and hop over that ancient stone wall, find that grove of oaks with their plum red shadows, paint the white pink scar sculpted into the rock of the hillside but no, its gone. And instead my patchwork meander became a screaming highway of jarring brushstrokes, foul colour, jagged shape which would not be tamed. Turning it upside down, find a new composition, but no, best turned to the wall. Only reapproached with fresh palette, brush and paint. Studio clearing imminent and necessary.
On the other side of the studio there's an inky black and blue Bosphoros, so close now, a huge container ship approaching, and the shadowed bulk of the fishermen in the foreground.

Sunday 23 August 2009

Tuesday 19 May 2009

launching a new fleet




"Ruzgar" is the Turkish name for wind and in the language there are names for the particular winds, their textures, temperatures and origins. There is a cool summer wind blowing from the Bosphoros. Ekmek Cafe remains closed and I have just hung some paintings as part of a group show at Beylerbeyi Palace. Crossing the bridge yesterday under its modern immensity and graphically suspended cables, I thought of Barnett Newman's verticals, Robert Motherwell's black slashes and numinous Rothko's.
And so to the studio to commense a new series of paintings. I have been working on a series of small canvases inspired by the sea at Bozcaada a rippled blue canvas punctuated as it always is by ghostly mirage like ships on the horizon. Some of the new canvases are just cyphers of water or space. Others have ships. The watercolours I did at Datca have taken me into a new space on the canvas. I want to drip paint, saturate with it, splurge it, let it run free, this is such a physical desire and perhaps why I have been avoiding my studio a bit. I have a lovely new studio but can I go in there and let this wind blow through me?

Saturday 28 March 2009

emek cafe


Yesterday in still too rare sunshine I took a walk down to Yenikoy to one of my former favourite sketching hang outs. Recently closed down Emek Cafe usually a bustling sea side breakfast and tea garden, is no longer there. All is quiet, umbrellas closed, tables gone, early signs of deconstruction in the cafe wall that used to comfortably contain the softly breaking waves, the hungry fish and not far beyond the passing ships. I'm joined in my reverie by a few overcoated men from the adjoining men's cafe, perhaps also pondering the loss of this formerly lively institution, Emek Cafe, or perhaps not. When the owner, manager? appears by my side? "What happened?" I ask in my still too elementary Turkish? Well, he explains, the neighbour in the rather grand, white yali next door decided to have it closed down. But why? I ask. He doesnt know, he says and adds, rightly, it wasn't noisy, no piped music, not rowdy, no alcohol. He alludes to the long history of the place .And pretty much no chance of it reopening, he says. But this is Istanbul and should i really be surprised, or sad. And a few doors down the far more generic Timothy's coffee shop has just appeared.
A few minutes later he disappears back into the former cafe terrace, and beckons me over the rubble. I go across and he has set up a table with two chairs in a spot in the sunshine. And in a moment a glass of tea appears from nowhere. I thank him and settle in as always, bringing out my sketchbook, and the minutes pass pleasurably and slowly. My tea finished, he brings me another. And when I leave my offer to pay is emphatically denied.

Sunday 15 March 2009

morning thoughts on art and economics


Its one of those white mornings on the Bosphoros, where the ships from my window look like they are being drawn across ice by an invisible force. There's been a lot of rain and the linden trees are in blossom everywhere.
Yesterday, on the Bosphoros, Tem riding his bike, and the Arcadia Hellas came by, a red and impossibly huge ship. Later Tem and I were noticing someone in a red raincoat, and someone else with a sparkly woollen hat, moving along like a snow flake, and then in the distance the sky again heavy with rain, and the Bosphoros a leaden grey.
Its Monday. Istanbul Yasam Atolyesi launches at the end of the week. This is not translatable into English, a centre for conscious living/ well being/ workshop for life, on their own, none of these phrases suffice. Together, well, you get the picture. It has a story. Three remarkable women had a dream a long time ago. Yasam will be an extraordinary place born of an extraordinary friendship. I feel privileged to have been invited into Yasam. I will have a studio there, and I will also facilitate a creative group called "bright spark". I was adamant I didn't want to give a painting class, but I have moved away from the idea of one on one "creative coaching" towards the idea of forming a small group creative launchpad. Why not painting? Because teaching people to visually play with their ideas in notebooks/sketchbooks is a whole lot less limiting, and allows people to begin to create in any direction and any medium.
Yesterday on the web, reading about a post consumption economics http://designthinking.ideo.com/?p=241#content
thinking about measuring economic success through participation and engagement, use of resources rather than gross domestic product. Thinking about how my experience of the economy in Turkey has been so much about exchange and participation.

Tuesday 24 February 2009

questions and answers

I had to answer some questions recently for a Turkish business publication. Here they are together with my answers:


What is it that Turkey has as a country that South Africa does not have?


I feel immensely privileged to have the opportunity to experience a culture so vastly different from my own.  It is very difficult to compare the two countries. Turkey, as a culture and a society, draws on such diverse geographical and cultural experience, and as I venture further into the country its ancient origins become more and more apparent. For me, as an artist, I am continually amazed by a country that has so many visible manifestations of reverence for the sacred. The cave churches of Capadoccia, the Deyrulzafaran monastery near Mardin with the cave of the sun god beneath contemporary chapel, the Roman mosaics of Zeugma or the mosaics of the Kora Church, Istanbul, are some of the examples that immediately spring to mind.


I think I have to distinguish between my experience of Istanbul, which is the city where I now live, and the rest of Turkey, only parts of which I  have visited, as a tourist. So I feel more qualified to talk about Istanbul than the rest of Turkey. The contemporary modernity of Istanbul appears to separate it significantly from the rest of Turkey. But just down our road, we still frequent the local butcher, baker, grocer, shoe maker and so on, instead of going to a big anonymous supermarket.

 Where in the world can one have the kind of  weekend experience one has in this city, shopping in Eminonou, drinking tea, visiting museums, having your special pen fixed by a specialist pen fixer in Sirkeci, all in one day and then the next, spending the day in Kanyon:  movie, burger, some shopping. Does any other city embrace this kind of diversity?



How do you feel about being a foreigner or a foreign artist in Turkey? 


Well there are two sides to it. One gets stared at a lot, but its hardly ever hostile  and I tend to absorb it as part of my job description here as a 'yabanci', although  I mostly don't want to be a 'yabanci' - I mean, I live here now. Somedays you really don't feel like the stares but on the other hand thank goodness people are still interested and curious about each other. But really I've been here two years now so I've had lots of opportunity to change my mind, but I think Turkish people on the whole are wonderful. And with that come all kinds of things that I love like the tea “porters” who supply an endless supply of cay to the industrious and their clients. Caybahceler are also wonderful, my favourite being Emek Cafe in Yenikoy where I can watch the ships passing (favourite subjects for painting) and where my son can feed the fish or the birds.

What are you doing right now, what do you work on?

 

I'm working on a series of paintings which are a response to Istanbul. These are founded in an ongoing process of drawing the city in my notebooks, its people, places, moments as I encounter them in the city. The big paintings, oil on canvas, hook the viewer in by referring to recognisable aspects of the city, the Bosphoros and its fishermen, the rooftops of Galata, the bridges but  they go beyond the obvious, exploring ideas, relationships between the city and its inhabitants, the presence of the Bosphoros and the pull it seems to exert on the built environment and the people. The paintings, as I reflect on them now, explore ideas of transience and permanence, history and modernity. The paintings I think celebrate Istanbul, precisely for its willingness to embrace all it is, precisely because of its chaotic dislocations and contradictory nature. The paintings respond to its beauty and its ugliness but somehow celebrate both. Painting has to be entertaining, which is not just to say decorative - it must provoke the eye and the mind. 




How does your Turkey adventure begin?

 

An early memory is staying in Buyukdere with my family, a rain storm, and I remember everyone was jumping around avoiding puddles, getting wet, cuddling in doorways of all the little shops and seeming to be delighting in it all. It was an immediate contrast for me from the other modern cities I have visited in America and Europe where everything can seem so well regulated, even the people.  

 


What are the places you like to go or activities you enjoy in Turkey or Istanbul?


There's so much! Our recent visit to Antep, Urfa and Mardin was a highlight.

Locally, there are myriad tea spots along the Bosphoros. Kanlica and Kuzguncuk are great too and I recently discovered Fener. I used to have a studio on Istiklal Cadessi, always exciting, and everyone always looks like they're having such a good time there. Asmelimiscat is fantastic for all the little restaurants, bars and cafes, and Babylon, where we've seen some good music including Brooklyn Funk Essentials which we loved. Emirgan and Park Orman are great in the summer, but we miss reasonably priced public pools. And then I haven't even started to mention all the amazing historical places; Hagia Sofia the most splendid building in all the world, or the wonders of the Topkapi Palace. 


Are there any similarities between the communities of South Africa and Turkey? 

They are both extremely interesting societies, both transitional rather than fixed societies. I feel a greater connection to Turkish society in many ways than I do to European society where cities, institutions and society feel a lot more rigid, set in their ways. Also there are strong values inherent in traditional society in both countries that have prevented both countries from being completely absorbed by Western secular materialism. To put it another way: both countries still have heart.


What differ you and your artworks from others? 


Well, that's hard to say but I've been painting for close on 20 years and people who now own my work all over the world, including collectors, writers, academics and business people often write to me to say how much they enjoy viewing and having my work around them every day. This is really gratifying to me and I think its linked to what I have said about painting needing to delight and entertain the mind and the eye. But for me painting is a way of life now.


What are your opinions about the art community of Turkey? Why do you think that Turkey, as a country with 70 million populations and descended from a strong culture, could not have raised any artist that universally known?


Firstly, the art world is a fickle place.  Who succeeds in the grand universal picture often has less to do with ability and more to do with promotion, art politics, economics, fashion and so on. But with the Biennial, Contemporary Istanbul and other internationally attractive art events I think this will come in time. But I believe it's more important that Turkey nurtures its own art community and then also a community of art collectors and buyers, because after all artists have to make a living too. Turkey needs to economically support its artists with funding and exhibitions. I think art education (by qualified teachers) is a priority in schools, educating a society that has an awareness of art and its importance - also in promoting a humane society - that needs to go beyond just an appreciation of its monuments.  That's why exhibitions are so well attended in London or New York: an appreciation of art and artists is so deeply enmeshed in the society. 









Friday 13 February 2009

Homer's Boat (For Don Maclennan)


"Hello Shorty" is how Don used to greet me. Anyone who knows me will appreciate the humour. There was something infinitely consoling about knowing that there was Don out there in the world, someone I could picture in his study and kitchen, house and garden, drinking a cup of tea, pulling a book from a bookshelf or a fig from the tree, sharing a joke with Shirley, and always tending words and thoughts in his poetry. Don was my best friend's father, he became my friend and mentor too. Till the last, offering me generous and incisive comment and encouragement in painting. Returning to visit Don  became something of a pilgrimage, and also a coming home.

Salaam Alaykum, dear Don

Possession and loss

After last night's heavy rain
the street is covered in a coat of cadmium flowers 
shed by the trees.

For them it is no
struggle to let go.