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Redrawing the language of traditional Anatolian wall carpets through the intrusions of the modern world. Pastoral scenes are interrupted by tanks, burning vehicles, digital-era icons, and atomic blossoms turning the carpet from a nostalgic ornament into a contemporary surface of memory. By preserving and destabilizing the woven aesthetic, I place rural serenity and industrial tension within the same frame. These works explore what happens to beauty, threat, and the myth of progress when a familiar textile suddenly hosts an unfamiliar object.
Artist Statement – Berkay Güngörmüş
My work centers on hand-painted wall rugs that merge traditional Eastern European/Anatolian tapestry aesthetics with a contemporary visual language. This medium carries a deep personal resonance for me: as a child, I often saw similar rugs in my grandmother’s home. Their colors, motifs, and quiet presence shaped my earliest sense of visual memory. Today, I revisit that world not as nostalgia, but as material, something to deconstruct and reinterpret.
Each piece becomes both an object of comfort and a place of tension. The softness of textile art stands in contrast to the symbolic imagery of conflict and serenity woven onto its surface. Through these oppositions, I explore how beauty and violence coexist within cultural memory, how inherited forms can reveal the emotional complexity of the present.
Rather than offering answers, my work invites contemplation. These rugs act as subtle provocations, challenging everyday dichotomies and encouraging viewers to look beyond the familiar. In this intersection of personal memory and collective history, I aim to evoke honest emotional responses.
Berkay Güngörmüş
Gallery: The Old Pond – Prenzlauer Allee 223, Berlin
Contact: artgallerypond@gmail.com
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