By Heidi Trautmann

 Güner Pir is a thouroughly acting art historian when it comes to to the prelimenary work he does for his paintings; Güner Pir does projects, series of paintings to one theme, an integral concept with variations to the main theme, like music, major.... minor  depending on his inspiration. But before he reaches for his tools, Güner Pir does research work in books and old documents. I know that from his exhibitions over the last ten years I have been following him.

History, history of Cyprus is the motor that drives him, and the precision of execution. For the current exhibition which took him again three years since the last one, he has chosen the documentation of Cyprus stamps as the theme that runs through the exhibition like a thread, connecting them to a serial novel.

Stamps are usually proof of historical events, they are published to memorize an event or a person, an eventful year, change of administration and so on.  See a short history on stamps and one of my reviews on an Exhibition of the Cyprus Philatelic Association. under the links below.

I can imagine that this was the centre point of Güner Pir’s  reflections when he started work on his current series of paintings. Güner Pir’s handwriting is the care he takes to prepare the canvas: layers by layers of colour are applied, removed, combed, scratched off to the bottom again, a sort of preparing the scenery for a play, right down to the canvas itself, threads pulled or cut out in order to have the appearance of an old document.  Series in different shades, shades of blue, then ochre and umber, dark red, colours of earth, sombre. Onto these such prepared canvasses Güner sets with fine lines the stamps as record of the time frame and figures as actors to tell the story.  Titles such as Captives, My spendid Kyrenia, Emigration, Blue Letters, The Fire Blaze.....going with the colours.

 The exhibition is open until 06 February 2015 at the Eaved House.

http://kypros.org/Postal_Services/stamps/stamp_history.htm

http://www.heiditrautmann.com/category.aspx?CID=4154617512#.VMhz1dKUfg8