Assoc. Prof. M. Candan Gungor’s personal exhibition titled “Ashore” is opened in Konak Municipality Izmir Woman’s Museum between 30th June – 27th July. The artist has made friends with marine creatures when she was just a kid and gave voice to the sea through ceramics and now in this exhibition those beautiful creatures have come to the artist’s “shore”.
Prof. Dr. ERSOY YILMAZ /
Cankiri Karatekin University, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Head of Ceramic Department.
“Can you see Mediterranean morays? If they slip past your notice look again! Some of them are distinguished by their red skins; and some are in a dappled grey color. How skillfully the artist reflected the gleamy pattern of the fish full of small dapples! Is this really a piece of earth fired in a kiln? How about those seashells surrounding it? Can ceramic become this thin? Well it became it seems! What’s happening here is the marine life coming together with the perfection of a craftsmanship or maybe merging with it so to speak. This merge is not causeless. This gracious lady from Izmir has looked into the eyes of a moray when she was just a little kid. Yes, just like friends or lovers who keep quiet and talk only with their eyes, she has talked with that moray. Ok, but hasn’t this little girl afraid of these magical moments even a bit? She has but the fish has soothed her down with its’ friendly looks. We don’t know what they talked about. But, on the occasion of this exhibition, we understand and know that that quiet dialogue has remained over for years and years.
“Ashore” is the fourth personal exhibition of the ceramic artist and educator Candan Gungor. Gungor continues to depict the sea with ceramic also in this successful exhibition of hers. This of course is not a presentation of marine fauna with a mere reflectionist language. By bending, twisting, stylizing and of course glazing/firing (for she’s a ceramicist), Gungor “plays” with the form constantly and belike in “ecstasy”. We don’t deny the place of realist art but this is not Gungor’s way. She’s a naïve and artist human being who collects her material from the very life itself and moreover hides it in her blossom over the years. Both Gungor’s and her art’s extraordinariness is better comprehended in a manner when we remember that we live in the artificial and digital realm of 21st century. The Mediterranean moray that appears again out of nowhere in a ceramic work form after many years, doesn’t it make you think the same?”
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