Güler Ates works with Video, Photography, Printmaking and Performance. At the heart of her work lies an exploration into the experience of cultural displacement. Manifestations of her work are realized through performance and site-responsive activities that merge Eastern and Western sensibilities.
Her work refers to unknown identities in her character that is the central theme in her work. Who is this person? What stories is she unfolding? And where is her place in the art and architectural histories of the West and the East?
The Veil is a garment or fabric as much as a concept that becomes theatrical in Ates’ work. Sometimes it becomes a form, a metaphor, a mystery, invisible, silence or holiness. It is a language that she employs in her work that also becomes poetic, revealing and concealing the body. The history of the veil goes back as far as to Mesopotamia, where it is believed the practice of veiling started in the higher ranks of society.
Güler Ates is inspired by paintings from the Dutch Old Masters. The darkness and intensity of the works on display are reminiscent of these masters of painting. Ín this way she comments on the Western notion of Orientalism and the effects of the cross pollination of cultures on female identity and architecture questioning the relationship between the veil and the West, and exploring the representation of the veiled woman, which refers back to the European traditions as found in the work of Old Masters such as Vermeer.