Belkis Beste Gezicioglu

I was born in Istanbul, Turkey at 1971. My love and passion for art started when I was child. My father was oil painting and my mother was working on art subjects. I tried different painting styles and still like to paint in water colors and oil paintings.

While I was interested in traditional arts, I have felt in love with Ebru. Ebru has personality, own dynamics, free will and it needs patience, love. It took 2 years to find a master who likes to teach without expecting anything from me and also another 2 years to paint together. I can not be thankful enough to her.

Ebru is an art which cannot be learnt by reading or listening as all other Ottoman Arts. It is extremely difficult as regards to its performance and effected by various parameters which are outside the control of a beginner
In order to overcome all these difficulties and guide the novice marbler to understand what he/she is doing so that technically perfect results are achieved, the guidance of a master is needed.
One of the most important characteristics of our tradition is the use of  natural earth pigments which belong to the chemical family of metal-oxides and other natural dyeing material all of which are not chemically soluble in water
Another important characteristic of traditional Turkish ebru is that the papers used are never treated with alum or anything else and the ebru paper is stripped off the marbling tray such that  no unnecessary size is left on the paper
Marbling results by the simultaneous operation of many accurate balances. Purity and application rules must be strictly observed
The density of the gummed water and the relationships between the water and the dye, the dye and the tensioning agent (gall), the quantity of gall in the dye are all very important. It may take some time to establish such a delicate balance.In Turkish marbling the brushes used to apply the color are always made from horse hair which will hold a considerable amount of pigment and not cling together; this helps the artist to spread the color with more control and homogeneity. Marbling is the art of creating colorful patterns by sprinkling and brushing color pigments on a pan of oily water and then transforming this pattern to paper. The special tools of the trade are brushes of horsehair bound to straight rose twigs, a deep tray made of unknotted pinewood, natural earth pigments, cattle gall and tragacanth

The Turkish marbling- Ebru is like life, you have your free will to put the colors on the water as you want but there is also God's will in Ebru like life, so you can not control everything. What ever you create is not only your free will's creation.

Every EBRU is unique. It is not possible to make two of them same, maybe you can make them only look like similar. Ebru is an art which cannot be learnt by reading or listening as all other Ottoman Arts. It is extremely difficult as regards to its performance and effected by various parameters which are outside the control of a beginner

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November 18 - December 18 2006