‘CITY OF AMBITION’ by Ferit Kuyas
Photofusion Gallery
17a Electric Lane
Brixton SW9
1st August – 27th September
“A translator of emotion as well as imagery, Kuyas is no modern day Marco Polo. He’s a poet of an all-but-untranslatable ongoing reality” Bill Kouwenhoven, British Journal of Photography, July 2008
In Ferit Kuyas’ first UK exhibition he takes the changing landscape of Chinas booming economy and the exponential growth of the city of Chongqing, one of the largest cities in the world, as his muse and inspiration for a series of photographs exploring the detailed, surreal and often poetic beauty of man made constructions in this natural landscape. Kuyas’ work in this exhibition allows the viewer to quietly observe the changing nature of the landscape and the prints document a moment in history where nature is encroached upon, mercilessly in many cases, in order to allow for the man made and material to make its mark.
The images in this show often reflect a peace and stillness that belies the noise, dust and upheaval experienced by the citizens of this massive city transforming before them. Kuyas’ colour palette, in the selected prints, ranges from subtle pastel hues, primary colours of bright yellows and blues to the ethereal luminosity of the neon sign. Both Turner and Breughel are brought to mind in this show with the almost painterly eye for detail, the suffused atmospheric light and the contrast of mans vulnerability in the face of the forces of nature. In the photograph titled ‘Yangtse River, Beibin Road 2005′ a tiny figure fishing at the edge of the river leans forward into the vast expanse of the Yangtse River with the towering monuments to growth and expansion beyond him suffused in a mist of Impressionistic, other worldly stillness.
There is an innate and profound sense of pleasure to be taken from the photographs on show in this tightly edited exhibition. From the dreamlike rainbow colours of a floating restaurants neon lights reflected in the murky waters of the Yangtse ‘Restaurant Boats, Yangtse River, Chongqing 2005′ , to the graphic signs lying in wait to be hauled to a position of height and prominence, this show veers from the seemingly insignificant to the grand. In scale and composition, colour and light, nature versus nurture, Kuyas has a masterly and sensitive touch. This is a quiet, peaceful, magical show not to be missed.
Jennifer Donaghy
These kinds of shows are invaluable in not only documenting remote and fast changing cultures and places but also in communicating these changes in a way that is human, aesthetic and that can transcend political boundaries. Good site, good review.