Halis Karakurt

When one peers into Halis Karakurt internal and private worlds what becomes immediately apparent is that two different visions coalesce as one in these visual works: an internal vision that one sees in visions and a type of representation that refers to the mimetic, that is, that refers to objects or their qualities that reside in the world of lived experience and reality. The near-impossibility of wrenching one system of sight from the other is at the core of this work's mystery and beauty. With this realization in mind it becomes quite clear this very fine artist intends to engage his viewers with the suggestive potency of symbolic material which refers to the antithesis of spirit-matter and matter-form: contrarieties always seeking synthesis but never achieving it. Naturalistic surfaces and textures alluded to are organic ones. The radiant gossamer quality of the bold marks, overall fields which resemble wave patterns, or microcosmic energy fields seem to ebb and flow on the residual larger forms which rests within them. They are fascinating to behold, a prism of the phantasmagoric characters involving dervishes and priests. These iconographic patterns allow the inner eye infinite access to a limitless and transcendent pictorial plane. The field is boundless and universal. The larger contrasted forms shimmer like apparitions within their overall spectral force fields. Three dimensions are insinuated but not stressed as size and scale becomes sublimely indeterminate. The dream quality pervades these efforts in which one can discern figural shapes that hover tremulously over the surfaces. These forms resist interpretation as they filter as spectral beings in and out of view. One could infer the impressions in time passed molded over cultures and civilizations. It is the mere suggestion of the past realized in a momentary flush, and then retreating, like a dream, in the night that keeps our attention and wonder fully aflame. www.haliskarakurt.net