Taking its name, Integral Flow, from the poem Eşik by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, a visionary poet and a novelist of great importance, Erim Bikkul’s exhibition is an attempt to evaluate the space and time that he lives in by looking behind appearances. Bikkul’s previous works were, by drawing and painting, in a sense acts of addition. Now he concerns himself with creating by subtracting – cutting out and removing parts of materials, such as paper and plastic, he’s been working on. He says: “The similarity of patterns made by tree branches, braided rivers, veins and neural systems, or the shared morphology of planet orbits and the ellipses described by cheap plastic templates sold on the street, and such numerous coincidences make me think that we are in an unbounded yet interconnected existence. Our ordained reality through which we absent-mindedly ramble is actually multi-layered. However, it is also moving as a unified integral flow. “Situations that are incomprehensible to us when we reduce ourselves to body, name, emotion, or experience and that drive us to make precise yet erroneous pronouncements, only gain significance when we overcome our drive to protect our egos. It is the only way, as William Blake says, “To see a world in a grain of sand / and a heaven in a wildflower.” I have tried to intimate these multi-layers by collaging layers of materials and forms that may look unrelated when approached separately.”

 

As an artist committed to exhibitions that bring not only artworks for visitors but also an opportunity to meet the artist, Bikkul will display his most recent works and work in a mini-studio in the exhibition area where he can interact with the visitors. Erim Bikkul graduated from Mimar Sinan University Faculty of Fine Arts Department of Painting in 2002. The same year he had his first personal exhibition. Attended numerous group shows until today.