Almula idil KILIÇ

I had already come across with a tile several times beforehand.  I had touched them and examined each one as a handicraft.. I had always curiously listened to the stories of the flowers coming out from an oven.. They say that it had been much more difficult in the past to adjust the firing temperature and damage reduction in wood ovens..

 

I had always looked at chinaware with admiration and curious eyes… And, when I come across with it at an unexpected moment, I began to practise it excitedly.. The distinctive smell of the soil and dye merged in my hands had opened the door of a brand new world in a manner..  It seemed as if each specific flower, leaf and design had its own story.. by fascinating and pulling you inside… For example, lets take a simple design where three circles sligthly touches each other.. it is called “çintemani”.. they have ascribed it a with rich and deep meaning concerning “power”, “strength” and “potency” as if it was the subject of a novel... I was lost on each point of it…

 

Those who practise tilework know it.. the color when you painted it is mat and pale.. Fort his reason they are called as “the flowers blossoming inside the fire”.. A brand new and different tile comes out of the oven.. so that you think that it was painted by someone else not you.. Later on I was curious of each tile during the firing process.. Every tile took me to a different garden.. It is like living in a fantasy world, holding a blue pomegranate in your hands..

 

At the end of the first year, during my first visit to Kütahya, I understood that I was at a very beginning of the tilework.. At a city where the tilework has been practised for so many years even centuries, I stil continue to learn it, respecting those who maintaining such a fascinating cultural heritage for years…

 

It was a 40 to 50 years old tile plate was the reason that directed me to practise  different tileworks.. “An archer riding a horse” was an unusual work for us.. Practising tileworks of admired and popular paintings as well as motifs and designs from the Turkic world had opened new horizons for me.. This exhibition is a specific practise concerning different designs from the Turkic world in addition to the classical tileworks.