Lot 77: Erol Akyavas (Turkish, 1932-1999)

Erol Akyavas (Turkish, 1932-1999)
Walls
signed and dated 'Erol 77' (lower right)
gouache and ink on card
21¾ x 29½in. (55 x 75cm.)
Executed in 1977

This lot offered for sale is subject to a 5% import duty on the importation value levied at the time of collection/shipment within the UAE.
Symbols and icons from high Ottoman and Turkish folk art invade various stages of Akyavas work from the late 1950s onwards, as the somewhat calligraphic pseudo-hieroyglyphs of lot 62 shows. Moving from abstract through to surreal collages in the early 1960s, later in that decade his paintings demonstrate his increasing interest in perspective- or more accurately heightened perspective- and architectural focus. His Rooms series of the mid-1960s place Miro-esque fragmented figures in the foreground of claustrophobic and disturbing interiors which remind one of de Chiricos distorted spaces. In the 1970s these rooms developed into castles and walls. The early paintings from his Walls series are constructed of regular units, but their overall structure does not conform to rational geometry. Their perspectival distortions allude to the changeable nature of space and time. This aerial view, and focus on geometricized castles is strongly reminiscent of Ottoman art of the sixteenth century, particularly that of the celebrated court artist Matrakci Nasuh from the time of Suleyman the Magificent (see note lot 58). Matrakci's panoramic views of landscapes and cities, painted with meticulous detail but diagrammatic rather than descriptive, with their pictographic symbols representing caravanserais, mountains, roads, rivers and bridges, deserts and steppe, were a rich source of motifs for Akyavas. The works from this series executed in the 1970s tend to be rigorous and geometrical. Those of the 1980s are looser in composition, showing the same structure from various perspectives at once, and with a ground often littered with detritus- fingers, hand prints, and bones.