INTERFACE

REVIEW

Eylem Binboga

Reviewed by: Stefhan Caddick »

We have sustained relationships with the objects in our homes, but seldom consider their effects on our emotional or intellectual lives. Domestic objects have always carried less intellectual weight than their counterparts in galleries, with whom we spend significantly less time. This paradox still exists – largely unchallenged – in the institutions of art.

I can't tell you how Eylem Binboga's utility items (or jewellery for that matter) would have affected me, had I lived with them. But I can tell you my brief impressions of them behind glass, in a gallery – which is different, really.

Binboga's work appeals initially through its use of vibrant primary colours and solid, modernist forms: truncated rectangular vases, squared-off plates and flamboyant, oversized necklaces. Closer examination reveals geometric shapes and figures which recall a graffitiesque interpretation of Islamic calligraphy, sealed into the object under layers of plastic laminate. The motifs which decorate the objects are drawn onto tissue paper or textiles and encapsulated within layers of perspex. These are built up successively to create a dense three-dimensional layering of colour and texture.

The work reveals its structure when viewed at an angle – the ephemeral, fragile materials of tissue paper and textile, which carry delicate motifs derived from Kurdish culture and Islamic geometry and calligraphy, are sealed within impermeable, industrial perspex. The process preserves the ephemeral but allows light to permeate throughout, the tension between the two types of material, their roots in different cultures creating a new, bright, translucent form.

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