Painter Bünyamin Balamir, who calls art a ‘journey of the heart’, said, ‘When we move on to the space age after us, there will be loves, hatreds, and affections there too.’
Painter Bünyamin Balamir celebrates his 52nd year in art with a retrospective exhibition. The exhibition will host its visitors at Emin Antique Art Gallery in Ankara until May 22. We talked to Master Painter Bünyamin Balamir about both his journey in art and the place of art in society today.
How did your journey in art begin? How do you feel 52 years later?
Yes, my journey in art is a journey that I started in 1967 when I was a middle school student in Çorum. It is a journey of the heart. I have paintings in this exhibition since 1973. It is my 52nd year in art, but it is also my 52nd personal exhibition. I set out in the mid-1970s with the words "human, nature, life". There are traces of my own journey in this exhibition.
I am someone who believes that art is not production but research. In that sense, I have very rich, very diverse periods, works that I have made using various techniques. I have always preserved my amateur spirit. You asked, how does it feel? This is my 52nd exhibition, but I am excited like my first.
Is art a journey in time for you?
In my paintings, reflections of the social structures, human values, and my social position of that day can be seen from time to time. For me, art is an aesthetic journey that a person makes to his/her own spiritual world.
Unmanned elements were added to nature. There were slight surrealist tastes. It became abstract. There were collages. There were mixed techniques. There were different periods in the 1990s. Since 2010, I have been working mainly with acrylic and oil paint. In recent years, notis from Anatolian civilizations have entered. This is a journey in time. I believe that the language of art is universal. The Hittites were the most important, the place where I was born, their capital. And from there, I use Hittite motifs in fantastic spaces, sometimes transforming them into a classical and sometimes an abstract object.
I have a concern about emphasizing the concept of time in another dimension. In this sense, I have an art language that is semi-abstract and semi-concrete, mostly texture-based.
You say, “Art is a research for me.” Can you elaborate on this a little?
Art is research. Now, let me say it without going into too much detail. There are many examples in art history. There is a great artist named Dufre. He says that I paint with my right hand. But I no longer have the excitement. I have mastered it. I no longer have the excitement. That is why he starts painting with his left hand. To look for a new excitement. Now, unfortunately, there is a confusion of concepts in our country. Art education and craft education are very different. Unfortunately, craft education is mostly done, but it is thought that art education is done. Art education is not the process of teaching any technique.
Now, research in this sense, let me give an example. Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is a world classic. It was there when I was a child. It is, and will still be. Let’s name the Les Misérables novel Perişanlar. There is Jan, let's call Jan George.
Let's put it on the market again as if it were a second novel, a print. Can it be? Of course not. Well, can it be art when you have been painting the same picture for 50 years, as if you were stamping it? I don't think so. It becomes a craft. There is no spirit, no excitement. Art is the artist's creation of the impossible world in his ideal.
Where is art in society today? How has it changed?
Now, when I compare my youth with our art world, when I say ours, I mean painting, plastic arts. In the past, today was utopian. I know it very well 50 years ago, 55 years ago. It was utopian. Now we have come to a point. But it is not enough. It is only the tip of the iceberg. But I can say that interest in art has increased.
For example, if someone finds out who I am while shopping at a market, they wholeheartedly support me and show me. They immediately show me, saying, ‘Teacher, my grandchild, my child painted pictures.’ I experience this, but years ago, no one cared whether you were a painter or a house painter.
CAPITALISM DESTROYED VIRTUE
So, was there any commodification? Did marketization affect painting?
The thing I criticize the most is the loss of virtue. In a world under the hegemony of the capitalist system, unfortunately, those who paint have turned to such a direction.
There were slight changes in the galleries where I opened exhibitions years ago. In the previous year or two, the gallery owner said, ‘Customers, Bünyamin Hoca is changing his style a little. What will happen to our paintings?’ They came to me and said. However, if he were a conscious consumer, he would say, ‘I will not listen to the same song from you. Sing slightly different songs.’
Today, digitalization is increasing. These developments have also been reflected in visual arts and painting. What do you think about digitalization?
I attach great importance to the concept of modernity. It is necessary to catch up with the age. Digital technologies can of course be used. Even I cannot make a second copy of my paintings. On the other hand, technology cannot replace the human soul. In the first age, which we call the cave age, man had hatred, grudge, affection, love, anger. When we pass to the space age after us, there will be loves, hatred, affection, joy, sadness, pain. But the ways of living are very different.
source: https://www.aydinlik.com.tr/haber/bunyamin-balamir-52-sanat-yilini-kutluyor-uzay-caginda-da-insan-ruhu-olacak-525566