Nilbar Güres

Description

Tent. Biel, Kunsthaus Centre d'art Pasquart, 17-04-2021, 13-06-2021. - Monografie toont schilderijen, foto's, textiele werken, collages en installaties van de Turkse kunstenares Nilbar Güres (Istanbul 1977). - The main focus of the monographic exhibition in Biel is on the last six years of Güres’ career. Güres works in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, film, performance, collage and drawing. Important elements of her work are the aspects of women’s lives and relationships that are inclusive and show solidarity, as well as the way in which they integrate their worlds into existing systems. The artist makes seemingly normal landscapes and geographies which she interlaces, however, with minimal adjustments, thereby conferring on them a touch of surrealism and a sense of the absurd. Textiles are an important medium for the artist, which she incorporates in her photographs, collages and sculptures, in order to reflect perceptions of the body and social structures of possession. During her study of painting in Istanbul and painting and graphic design at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, as well as her training in fine art and textile design, Güres was already intensively involved with the medium of textiles. Many of the different fabrics used in her work were acquired from women in the artist’s immediate milieu. They derive from different periods, often reflecting private memories or political situations. Characteristic of Güres’ collages are pictorial and graphic elements to which she adds fragments of textiles. In her collages the artist frequently takes up themes related specifically to the sexes, questioning conventional female roles within patriarchal family structures and symbolising the collective empowerment of women resulting from processes of solidarity. Fabrics are also often the basis for Nilbar Güres’ sculptures, sometimes in the form of cushions, that are used as a dowry in Turkey. Her textile sculptures frequently have a fetishist character and refer to body parts. The artist’s multi-faceted approach to patterns and fabrics forms a productive source for subversive appropriation. In recent works, such as Sour as a Lemon (2020), fabric is transferred from the traditional context of handicraft to the (trans)gender political narratives of the sculptures.