the words escaped my lips unbidden: iron earth, copper sky …
it seemed the most precise description of a rusting world’
– Ahmet Doğu İpek
Inspired by the natural landscape of Cornwall and the Anatolian night sky, İpek’s large-scale works on paper evoke Neolithic standing stones and the ores that permeate the geology of the region, as well as the planets Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and Venus and the sensation of a galaxy. The works are named after St Eia, the patron saint of St Ives, and the exhibition title borrows from a 1963 novel by Turkish-Kurdish writer Yaşar Kemal.
Ahmet Doğu İpek (b. 1983) lives and works in Istanbul. He works primarily with watercolour, ink, and charcoal on paper, using a slow and detailed process.
This exhibition is part of a collaboration between Tate St Ives and SAHA – supporting contemporary artists from Turkey.