Featuring artwork by Oktay Öksüzoğlu and Ersin Patırmacıoğlu
By Heidi Trautmann….
The two artists have chosen a title to say to their people, “Don’t lose hope in Cyprus”…. in spite of everything, I would like to add. They have joined their works in this one exhibition to underline the messages they want to give.
I went to see their exhibition at the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Nicosia one afternoon and had the pleasure to meet both artists who took the time to go with me along the rows of their works. It is in fact very valuable to learn their philosophy of working.
And I learned again that artists are highly sensitive in their way to see and follow the way humanity goes and develops; they are concerned. One way is to give hope, maybe to see things positively by concentrating on the beauty of nature and excluding the ugliness, but the other way would be to show reality but include a seed of hope.
In fact, these are the messages the two artists want to give with their works. A woman and a man, both with their personal backgrounds, but Cypriots, the woman has lived in Australia remembering the peaceful clean beauty of the country, and there is the man who went through the painful times of his country but also personally…. and still wanting to believe in the seed of hope, the seed of hope in the womb of humanity, while encircled by the truth. What is the truth? The truth is history, it is the personal experience one has lived through.
What is art? Art basically is the documentation of the development of humanity. Already in the old times, artists have been following wars, been with explorers on their boats around the world to document the ongoings and discoveries. In the more modern times, we had photography to do part of the recording job, but the artists of today do the interpretation of the influence the development of humanity has on us, on society.
In fact, we artists are storytellers, giving society our views, and often as a warning… and reminding us that we are nothing but a link in nature, we come from the earth and will return to earth, while at the same time, the sky images tell us a different story of beauty.
Unfortunately, the exhibition lasted only for three days….hopefully, it will be shown in other parts of the island.
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