Gibsons' ceramic artist Katie Janyk made her international debut last week as she opened an exhibition of new work at the Istayonu Galerisi in Istanbul, Turkey.
About 10 years ago Janyk rediscovered the Cappadoccia area of Turkey, and has been visiting a studio in the town of Avanos for a number of weeks each year. This year, arrangements were made for an October showing of her work at the Istasyon Akademie which is an art school and gallery just off the world famous Itsikal Caddesi pedestrian street in Istanbul.
Janyk's pieces for this show were all made in just the two short months she has been at Avanos this year, and so the pressure was on for her. What has resulted is about 25 intriguing terra cotta mural pieces with two or three themes. Once the designs were completed and fired, the colouring and coating were the challenge, and Janyk had some anxious times with the acrylic copper-blue highlighting.
The title of her show is Sevigler, which means "with love" in Turkish. Four of the bigger pieces featured delightful human figures in the subtle relief that clay murals can present. The largest theme piece is titled Sevigler and is based on an earlier Love in Ruins theme. It depicts a couple in embrace, with the male figure looking vacantly away and the female apparently pursuing the embrace. This piece, as well as the other human figures, were rather whimsical, with light abstraction and delightful exaggeration of curves and features.
The smaller pieces were mostly devoted to her love of the Cappadoccia landscape and architecture, with allusions to the craggy hills and caves. A half dozen pieces depicted the fluid, lyrical motion of dancing figures, in varying degrees of abstraction. One individual piece was a delightful picassoesque Pavloci, the clown.
Those familiar with her work will recognize these as Janyk pieces, but she especially strove to reduce and simplify the colour embellishments, resulting in the terra cotta earthiness that the Turkish themes and setting require. This is delightful and whimsical work, exhibited in one of the most exciting locales in the world.
To see Janyk's pieces in progress, view her blog at salamanderkatie.blogspot.com.
