Banu Birecikligil, who blends the fantastic characters of her subjective, surreal world with childhood elements, opens her fifth solo show “Christal Globe” on April 26th, 2012 at x-ist.
The stories in Birecikligil’s paintings, which remind us of dreams or fairy tales, continue with a new chapter. Oscillating between consciousness and fantasy, the artist includes symbols of her inner ego and its fictional representation in her work. Birecikligil’s personal mythology - monsters, dwarves and gigantic cats – gives us a sense of her deep interior and longing for nature.
Birecikligil’s figures are primitive but her stories are mature. In her new exhibition “Crystal Globe”, she no longer feeds from longing for childhood, instead from her current state and gradual change. Her characters have already passed the introduction chapter; they are drawing close to the final. In these tales, Birecikligil can either be the narrator or the protagonist. While a new start awaits her characters at any moment, what they have left behind reveals the artist’s personal journey.
Birecikligil’s surreal settings and their fictional residents (or guests) can be seen until May 26th at x-ist.
BANU BİRECİKLİGİL, İstanbul, 1970
Birecikligil graduated from Mimar Sinan University, Painting Department in 1995 and the Berlin Art University, Faculty of Fine Arts in 2000. After her first solo show in the European Patent Bureau (Berlin, 1999), she had three exhibitions at x-ist; Flirting Behind the Front-lines (2005), Eat Me… Protect Me (2006), Lost Landscape (2008) and Nocturnal (2009). Her work has also been shown in the 9th and 10th Istanbul Biennials, artfair06 Cologne (Cologne, 2006), Contemporary Istanbul 07, 08, 09, 10 and 11, Made in Turkey (Frankfurt, 2008), “Possibilities, Perceptions and Speculations on Istanbul” (Istanbul, 2008), Fiktion Okzident (2011) and group exhibitions in such venues as the Apartment Project, Hafriyat and Sobe. In 2010, Birecikligil participated in ART HK’10 (Hong Kong International Art Fair). Also, in 2011 her works were displayed at Scope Basel 2011.
Banu Birecikligil - Crystal Globe from x-ist on Vimeo.