The exhibition is also the place of dialogue between Bijoy Jain, Chinese artist Hu Liu and Turkish ceramist Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye. Giving the same importance to the ritual mastery of the gesture, resonance and dialogue with matter, all three share the same ethos and sensitivity.
Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye
Born in 1938 in Istanbul (Turkey). She lives in Paris since 1987.
Over the years, Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye has perfected an intense dialogue with material, through ritual mastery of gesture. Rigor, repetition, and patience are marks of quality for this artist, who from the beginning, found inspiration in the cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Anatolia. In this dialogue with clay, the artist emphasizes the importance of water as a basis for erecting earth, just as in architecture. Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye’s ceramics are curvaceous, thin-walled, wide-rimmed bowls that invite the viewer to contemplate the silence of the space held within. Embodying a certain latency, each bowl demonstrates a paradoxical stance, between grounded equilibrium and ethereal ascension.
Their sensual sleekness leads to a sensation of weightlessness. Bijoy Jain presents Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye’s weightless pieces on a plinth made from miniature handfired bricks. These are meticulously assembled, each brick held with a mortar of finely powdered burnt clay mixed with lime and water.
Hu Liu
Born in 1982 in Xinyang, Henan Province (China). She lives in Beijing.
Hu Liu’s monochrome black drawings are created using graphite, repeating iterations of the same movement, line by line, to reveal the essence of natural elements: the grass caressed by the wind, the rolling of the waves, or the silhouette of the branches of a tree. Though the entire surface of each drawing is covered and can appear monochrome, her works are not black: they are, according to the artist, xuán. The word can mean “dark” or “mysterious,” and evokes the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi, which encourage carefree wandering, “inaction” (無 為, wúwéi), natural spontaneity based on quietude and the absence of thought. “The spatial and temporal changes caused by the growth of a life-form is marvelous and magical, like the creation of artwork; they are all driven by the forces generated from the primitive power of life.”
A drawing inscribed directly on the ground echoes the Wagh Bakri, the tiger and goat game and invites visitors to become participants just by their presence.