Günay Shamsi - Pictures, Art, Photography Günay Shamsi

Günay Shamsi


Background Information about Günay Shamsi

Introduction

The Baku-born and, since 2015, Berlin-based artist enjoys pushing the limits of perception. Her images possess thoroughly mannerist characteristics – the ground and parts of the body repeatedly dissolve into bluish-yellow streaks, clouds and fields of colour. Shamsi varies her themes but not her painting style, whose palette and ductus are characterised by typical and easily identifiable elements. The cream-like colours, constantly contrasted by dark tones of grey and realistically rendered details, are truly amazing, as if parts of the image have been transformed into molten ice cream! Shamsi gives the space free rein, confuses our usual routines and ways of seeing, emphasises two-dimensionality and accentuates the depicted scenes through ellipses and omissions.

Astro-Horse is a perfect example: a splendidly shimmering horse wearing a flexible astronaut’s helmet and gazing into a floating mirror sphere in which we can see a horse’s head without a helmet looking at us. We would not be wrong in pointing out that, in this way, the picture’s virtual viewer – meaning us – is indirectly proclaimed a horse.

Shamsi chooses her titles carefully, often in Latin, in order to give her works a sense of sophistication. She imbues her art with adventures as well as with deeper mysteries and cultural meaning. There are clear references to art history and classical surrealist modernism, but at the same time she is constantly reworking its themes in a highly original manner. In fact, with its unique questions of perception, her Astro-Horse recalls one of the classics of the early modern relationship between image and viewer, one that many academics and intellectuals have attempted to analyse: Diego Velázquez’s courtly painting Las Meninas.

Stephan Reisner

Bio

2003-2007Berufsfachschule für Malerei «A. AsimZade» bei der Aserbeidschanischen Kunstakademie

2007-2011Studium der Bühnenmalerei an der Aserbaidschanischen Staatlichen Universität für Kultur und Kunst. Diplom mit Auszeichnung

2015-2018Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin, Studien gang Freie Kunst / Bildhauerei bei Prof. Else Gabriel. Diplom mit Auszeichnung

2018-2020Meisterschülerin, bei Prof. Albrecht Schäfer und Prof. Else Gabriel an der Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin

Awards

2010-2012Präsidentenstipendiatin, Stipendium für Malerei (Verband Aserbaidschanischer Künstler)

2010Auszeichnung der DeutschAserbaidschanischen Gesellschaft e.V für Verdienste um die deutsch aserbaidschanischen Kulturbeziehungen
2011Beste Nachwuchsmalerin Aserbaidschans (Ministerium der Aserbaidschanischen Republik für Jugend und Sport)
2009Women's Association for Rational Development, Baku, Azerbaijan

Exhibitions

2022

Exhibition "Frack, Cut, Smoking - Stylish from the evening reception to the German Bundestag ́ ́ for the company Cut For You, Berlin

Aserbaidschanischen Kulturhauses Khari Bülbül e.V., Hotel Waldorf Astoria, Berlin

2014Adam & Eva, Ardes Galerie, Berlin

2009Role Models - Women Daring to Change, Women's Association for Rational Development, Baku, Azerbaijan

2022

Discovery Art Fair Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main

Weihnachtsausstellung 2022 der Stiftung Starke, Löwenpalais, Berlin

UN PEZZO DI ME, Transform Galerie, Berlin

2021

21 Expressions, Online exhibition, organized by Faculty of Fine Art, National Academy of Arts, Culture and Heritage (ASWARA), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia und ArtFort, Indien

Die Kulturelle Luftbrücke, Kühlhaus, Berlin

2020Jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne, Transform studio & Galerie, Berlin
2019

Artistic meetings, Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin – Familienzentrum ZION, The New Synagogue, Berlin

Weihnachtsausstellung 2019 der Stiftung Starke, Löwenpalais, Berlin


2018

Caspian Art Wave, gallery Resonance, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Defying Currents, Abschlussausstellung der Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin, Prof. Else Gabriel

SURREAL GARDENS between Baku and Berlin, ArtStudio Maria Wirth, Berlin

2017

Aserbaidschan trifft Bulgarien in Berlin, Galerie Berlin Baku, Berlin


Worpswede Price, AUTO / MACHT / MOBILITÄT, PS. Speicher, Einbeck, Deutschland

Granatapfel und Feuerberg, Contemporary Azerbaijani Art, Kunststation Kleinsassen, Hessen

Preisträgerin des Malwettbewerbs, Museum FLUXUS+, Potsdam

Artrium, THE HAUS Berlin Art Bang, Berlin


2016

Aserbaidschan trifft Japan in Berlin, Galerie Berlin Baku, Berlin


Academy of Contemporary Art, Creative Writing with Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin, Tromsø, Norway


2012

Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France

Grand Tournoi de Chevalerie, Normandie, France

Blue Water, Four Seasons Hotel, Baku, Azerbaijan

2010United Buddy Bears Show, Berlin, mit Ali Shamsi
20081st place of the exhibition on the occasion of the 85th birthday of the President of the Azerbaijan Republic H. Aliyev