Nermin Kura

Galeri Nev, continues the season with a solo show by Nermin Kura entitled ‘Ser’. The exhibition comprising works created by the artist between the years 1996 and 2013 carries the substantiality of a retrospective. Drawing her inspiration from the Ottoman art of ceramics, of tile making and traditional flower designs, Kura follows the traces of creativity and techniques of the past, while amalgamating them anew through a contemporary understanding of this culture. Her ceramics that are voluminous, enlarged many fold their original size, some even hybrid or products of her imagination, are painted and glazed in plain but brilliant colours that emphasize the elements of their forms. Thus, she creates a language of forms and colour loyal to the symmetry, sexuality and abundance of details to be found in nature. According to Art Historian Serpil Bağcı, “If one tries to look at these forms from another dimension, with some of them, it may feel like looking beyond the petals of an upside down tulip’s petals with a magnifier, and seeing other opening forms reaching up to us, revealing their contents. Nermin Kura deals with the issue of containment in her ceramics. She does not conceal what her forms hold within, revealing them either through their openings, by extending them outwards, from the side, or by transforming their color. Thus these vessels inspired by flowers, communicate with us, and help us discover their inner stories.”
Nermin Kura graduated in 1996 from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Design and Architecture of Bilkent University, with a pHD on “Ottoman Influence On Tunisian Mural Tiles of the 16-17th Centuries”, in 1997, she obtained a Fine Arts Master’s degree in the field of Ceramic Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, a research diploma in 1985 from the Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne on African History, and in 1982 a degree in History of Art from the Université de Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV. Kura, was a History of Art lecturer at Ankara Bilkent University Faculty of Fine Arts, Design and Architecture between 1990 and 95, and at the Rhode Island School of Design between 1995 and 97, and was also a guest artist at the RISD. She was a lecturer on ceramics at the Bennington College in Vermont, USA in 1997, and at Rhode Island College in 1999. Nermin Kura is currently a professor of History of Art at the Roger Williams University in Rhode Island.