Bridging the gap between traditional and experimental art forms, Tulu Bayar’s mixed media works are sculptural gestures, frozen in time.
In “Traces,” she draws with undeveloped film, as opposed to exposing, processing and enlarging the materials in the darkroom. She then encases the resulting forms in resin and ink.
Each piece is an exploration of calligraphic abstraction (reminiscent of Islamic art), performance, drawing, and ebru (Turkish marbling art).
About her process, she says, “Drawing allows one to go back and reflect. The gestural record on the surface stages a moment of existence that is no other moment. By containing that peculiar moment, I feel like I am able to memorialize the process.”
The intimate scale of the works in “Traces” invites viewers to step closer, to discover what images are hidden in the film, never to be seen as anything but a negative. In the artist’s words, “A journey on a contained surface.”
Bayar’s work evokes the relationship between time and space itself. We can never clearly see or fully grasp the many layered histories that shaped the world we live in today. We can only see the shape of the world.
Traces is on view until June 13, 2021, at artist-run Amos Eno Gallery, 56 Bogart in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
It is open Thursday-Sunday from 12-6 PM.
About Tulu Bayar:
Tulu Bayar (b. Ankara, Turkey) has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries in the US and abroad. Her work is part of public collections including but not limited to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Samuel Dorsky Museum, Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art (Istanbul), and the Textile Museum at George Washington University.
Bayar holds an MFA from the University of Cincinnati and is currently the chair of the Department of Art and Art History at Bucknell University.
