FROM POWER OF COLORS
To Mehmet Güler’s Painting _2014
Eng_Prof. Dr. Frank Günter Zehnder / Retired Director of the State Museum Bonn
It is not hard in the least to distinguish Mehmet Güler’s painting. They cannot be confused. You can see clearly his sign in his paintings.
The language he acquired over the years has been undergone contextual, formal and processual change just like all other great works. However, despite all those changes his works have protected their primary colors and style. His unique style and drawing, from the wood carvings to paintings, constitute a whole. His art is neither meaningless nor unnecessary. It does not address to intellectual cognizance only, but tends also directly towards emotion and feelings. When considered from this point of view, his latest works involve
intriguing images. They force the viewers to an intense and concentrated reading to the finest details. His painting world is an universe involving its own original emphasis and its unique own laws free from all kind of boundaries. Whoever accepts to enter that world, we can say that he exposes himself to the attacks of existential expressions and colors by opening up the doors and windows. This touchesthe viewers deeply and constitutes a starting point for them while they examine the other works of the painter. It is completely unique and at the same time authentic. It came by gliding in sight from his character, biography and artistry. This is at the same time nested inextricably with form and color process that has been developed over the years. Owing unique laws is not a coincidence, on the contrary it is the result of an interminable conflict between experience and assumptions. In his paintings such as ones with the themes of “Traumbaum” or “Blau geniessen”, Mehmet Güler reflected in a sensitive way the vibrations between seeing and noticing, perception and reflection, reality and image. In his works that have been produced thus far an essential stance finds an expression as well as an universal validity formulation with the impression that has been gained by experiences.
Enthusiastic color usage adapts itself to a balanced composition. Being all ears and intellectual justification reflect a well-rounded intercultural experience in his paintings. Covering a distance from village to world, from plainness to high culture means home loss but, at the same time, it means getting a gain of mundanity. The archaic paintings that hold their own until today in terms of artistic expression,
reserve impressions concerning humans, colors and home.
In Mehmet Güler painting subjects and contents constitute a homogenous integrity with forms. Past, present and future create a meaningful nesting. Esthetics and morals touch with one another, just like an intellectual subtility, in a formal foreground. Yet another token of Mehmet Güler painting is the equilibrium between emotion and reason, vision and analysis. They constitute a common basis just like experienced and conceived present and tomorrow ensuing each other. Accordingly, his paintings have a timeless future and they are open to both cognitive and affective perceptions. This kind of painting is independent from every kind of rutin, fanaticism, ideology and propaganda. In the strictest sense it is a free art.
Paintings and graphics in the creative world of Mehmet Güler have an aesthetical writing characteristic having a magical ability creating enchanted works with fewer materials. A larger part of his works appears just like a colored surface painting and feed on no perspective elaboration. It is beside the point to create a photorealism or a collage technique or an illusionism. Composition, colors and structures always experience a new starting point in this pattern of macro and micro universe.
The inner necessity of the subject is counterbalanced with the limitless freedom of expression. The Artist works without having sketches and preparatory drawings, avoiding to make copies and remakes of the tables. He takes cognizance of authenticity, originality and continuous up-to-dateness. The compositional structures of his works form the pictorial elements such as light-darkness, smooth-hard, silent-vocal, stable-dynamic, concentrated-excited. Güler confirms that he gives primacy in his works to color processes, color and form conditions implicit in painting and the pictorial reality made up for concealing reality and form. The manner of work and the process of formation can be followed by the naked eye.
Relations of front-back, up-down, far-near is obtained by the vertical and diagonal orientation of the painting or by color intensity or color transparency. In his paintings contrast and accord standing side by side appears as if they would be disintegrated and put the criteria of formal and contextual emphasizing. Accordingly, the columnar groups and “rolling figures“ that are seen in his tables are the image elements that are appeared necessitating each other. In this way, we recall in his paintings the ancient dramas and tranquility in our days. In all tables while experiencing exciting inebriation the critical view identifies the process when the picture ends. Over the years the colors in his paintings have been more brighter albeit they do not mention the scorching heat and the shore. It is sensed that efforts have been made for reaching a striking color. In this way colors, motions, composition and the usage of paints have become
an explicative for personel perspective view, unidentified desire or the personal transformation of the world. Everything is likely. They force and assaults, try and doomed, getting heavy and glide, mind and body make themselves necessary. Even if a paint grey-tinged gives opportunity to toning just like tranquility and dramatic.
The works of Mehmet Güler that is in search of are too different from programmatic painting. His works is in a quality that they are in a process probing limits. They are trying to gain insights into everything and the process never ends. On the contrary it makes new explorations all the while. In this way, process and product are in an interaction bringing together unexpected results. For example, the works of last period that deal with East-West relations or Turkish-German Poems. Heine, Rilke or Goethe present a painting world formed by different dialects, while thoughts, lines and colors are nesting with each other.
Sometimes an epic, sometimes a poem, sometimes depth of thought and sometimes immensenness of emotions make them living. Texts generally can be read thanks to the colors that are applied in magic way, but this is not important. The point ist he pure entities of them. As it is understood from the paintings fraught with color wish subject and meaning of words embrass the painter with passion. He almost realizes a copy in the paint. The painting process captivates him totally. The passion brings the color to the point of explosion.
The most striking work in this scope is the one appeared 2011: “Wer sich selbst und andere kennt, wird auch hier erkennen: Orient und Okzident sind nicht mehr zu trennen”, “Wer sich selbst und andere kennt”. Mehmet Güler expresses his emotions and thoughts in this work.
In those kind of works frame of mind and contemplation are nested together. They are the works by which the painter reveals himself in the most authentic way.
Prof. Dr. Frank Günter Zehnder / Retired Director of the State Museum Bonn, Kulturamt Unna 2014
from the book “IM RAUSCH DER FARBEN – MADNESS OF COLOUR”
Unna Cultural Office – Kettler Publishing house – Germany