"I like to watch movies. Normally I look at them in the night and I draw my inspiration from the moving pictures. Indeed, I like fantasy and science fiction movies."
-- Burçin Erdi
After more than 2 years I met Burçin Erdi again in Istanbul. I visited the painter in her studio at the Anatolian side of town. We had a drink together and she told me about her last exhibition in summer in Boston. And that she got married to an Istanbul movie director. She seemed to be very happy. In a few months she is expecting her first child.
I saw her new impressive series of pictures. They are mostly made of dark colors. Burçin got inspired by the recent refugee tragedy which leaves Europe breathless.
"I cannot close my eyes when people are dying. Therefore I painted them. I combine them with athletics, with sportsmen. I just saw many photos from extreme sportsmen. I looked in their faces and I recognized that they all have the same expression. The same as those from people who are dying in the war or between borders. When people are crossing borders they do have all the same expression in their faces."
And Burçin focuses on those images: Dying faces.
Refering to her dark pictures she shows me one of her recent paintings with a group of people at night, all starring in their smartphones and laptops. "That's my so called blue light," she admits.
Further she refers to Caravaggio and to Rembrandt. "They all painted pictures in the shine of a candle. Dark pictures."
More about Burçin Erdi at sl4artglobal!
Photos: Sabine Ludwig