Nazım Balaban
Annemin Kınası (My Mother's Henna Night)
2023
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 170 × 170 cm
- Viewing
- At the showroom — by appointment
By night, in a village square ringed by stone houses, a crowded henna ceremony unfolds: at the centre the bride in red, around her figures playing the saz and dancing, and rows of seated women in black shawls with children. Onlookers watching from the windows, a domed tandoor structure and a deep-blue sky with a full moon build a detailed, many-figured composition; in the foreground, figures gazing into the square over a low stone wall lend the scene its depth.
About the Artist
Nazım Balaban (Hasan Nazım Balaban, b. 1955, Bursa) is the son of İbrahim Balaban (1921–2019), one of the masters of Turkish painting, and takes his name from the poet Nâzım Hikmet. Raised within the tradition of painting, he entered the art world with a group exhibition in Istanbul in 1984, and since 1997 has devoted himself entirely to his art. He has held numerous solo and joint exhibitions, among them "Father and Son Balaban" (2017–2018), staged with his father at the Ekol Art Gallery in İzmir. He carries forward the family line — the everyday life and traditions of the people of Anatolia — in an expressive language of his own.
All Artists →