View Larger Image “Reflections of a Dream,” 4 ft. (1.2 m) square, grogged clay with sprayed porcelain laminate, brushed and trailed slip and glaze, slumped glass and decals.

June 11, 2007

Discovery in Turkey: The Ceramics of Mehmet Kutlu

by Ann Hazinedar | Read Comments (0)

For Mehmet Kutlu, “embracing the ocean” of his chosen medium is both a playful exploration of the unknown and a disciplined process of experimenting with materials, an approach for which his background serves him well. After an earlier career in engineering, he returned to university in Istanbul as a mature student, graduating from the Fine Arts Faculty of Mimar Sinan University. In the fifteen years since then, Kutlu has been working in his Istanbul studio with white and colored porcelain, heavily grogged local clay, glass, slips, glazes, lusters, decals and “cotton wool clay.”

Turkish history and culture resonate throughout Kutlu’s work. One series of colored porcelain and slumped glass wall panels incorporates motifs from Ottoman miniatures; another evokes landscapes, others childhood memories. Large wall-panel portraits of friends place them in the context of the daily life and cultural inheritance of Turkey.

For panels incorporating slumped glass, an area of clay is carved out with attention to placement and size: too near the edge and the porcelain base will be weakened; too large or too small and the glass may slump excessively or not enough. To reduce the number of stress points, which might cause cracking during firing, the clay is cut out in one smooth movement. Edges are beveled to facilitate slumping and smoothed with a lightly dampened sponge to prevent cracks.

At the leather-hard stage, an intersecting grid of ribs, cut from slabs, is luted to the back of the panel. As well as minimizing cracking and warping, these give the panel shadow and depth when it is hung. Holes pierced in the ribs on several sides of the panel afford the possibility of hanging the work in a variety of ways. At the dry greenware stage, or after a bisque firing to 1652°F (900°C), designs may be softened and merged through sanding with glass paper before being fired at 2192°F (1200°C) in an electric kiln.

Slumped glass may now be incorporated into the design. For panels of approximately 16×24 inches (40×60 cm), Kutlu cuts 4 millimeters of window glass to fit just inside the supporting ribs that surround the carved-out hole. Decals may be applied to either or both sides of the glass. Areas where glass and clay come into contact are dusted with aluminum dioxide to prevent adherence and consequent cracking on cooling. The porcelain panel and the glass are now fired together, with the porcelain supported on kiln props to create space for the glass to slump. Kutlu fires the kiln up to 842°F (450°C) over three hours, and then more rapidly to between 1364–1436°F (740–780°C), judging by eye when the desired degree of slumping has been reached.

If a double layer of glass is to be included in the design, a second sheet of glass is slumped through a similar but smaller hole in another slab of clay. Finally, mirrors may be incorporated into the piece, creating the illusion of depth.

For his recent large panels, Kutlu uses a heavily grogged local clay. He may first sketch a design, or create one through playing directly onto the single, thick slab, and then carve the work into sections when it becomes leather hard. These sections, backs hollowed and grooved, edges beveled, are then laminated with thin porcelain slip, poured over each as it rests on a board of ridged slats. Onto this laminated surface, he builds up designs as with his small panels by pouring, trailing, brushing and spraying slip and glaze, and firing multiple times. He also adds decals and slumped glass.

The divisions between sections are not disguised, but emphasized as an integral part of the design with grouting, shading with oxides, or by a technique discovered first by accident, and then developed by design: to achieve the color effects he was seeking in the porcelain laminate, Kutlu was forced to fire above the range of the grogged clay, causing it to warp. By experimenting with firing temperatures, he has been able to control the deformation so that the sections still fit together precisely, but each curves gently outwards. This gives the panels a softly cushioned appearance, echoing the intimacy and tenderness of the subject matter. “Everyone Is Sacred,” though having the grandeur of a sacred mosaic, conveys a personal, humanistic message. The size of the panels also allows Kutlu to include several areas of slumped glass.

Invited to work at the Eczacibasi VitrA Art Studio in Istanbul, Kutlu had the opportunity to fire in large gas kilns. Experimenting with handmixing varying amounts of cotton wool into casting slip, using it immediately or leaving it overnight, he discovered that the connecting fibers in this cotton wool clay enabled him to incorporate different clay bodies into the same piece and to create distinctive textures within the fired clay body.

Bathroom furniture and fittings, exhibited in Eczacibasi VitrA’s “Personal Traces” exhibition are familiar in form but startling in texture. In this exhibition’s catalog Kutlu writes, “My work is given direction through errors in the making process, through contradictions, through the language of my childhood and through discipline…artistic inspiration is nothing but the high level of concentration that can be acquired through this approach.” Mehmet Kutlu both embraces the accidental and draws upon an accumulation of technical knowledge and skills acquired through observation and experimentation. But though technical discoveries give his work impetus, they do not dominate. Rather, he selects them with restraint to create works enriched by an intimate relationship with the culture of his homeland.

About the Author
Ann Hazinedar comes from Cornwall, England. She has lived in Turkey for the past thirty years, working in the field of education and focusing in recent years on clay work with children. She regularly accompanies Discovery Art Travel groups visiting Turkey. For further information on Discovery Art Travel, see www.denysjames.com.