"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?
