- Venue
- Waterloo Gallery
- Location
‘Life Force’ was an inspiring and interesting first Solo exhibition of work by artist Cos Ahmet, showing etchings, paintings and textile pieces.
The work was pertinent and highly personal and mapped out a life journey. This touched many people who commented on how they saw the relevance not only to the artist’s life, but also to their own; a connection being made with the issues of identity and sexuality which engaged the onlooker. These deep felt emotions and inner thoughts although not at first evident soon became less hidden and felt with empathy. The enigma of the artist was felt with force.
His use of colour were both strong and subtle, and in the etchings, the multiple plate printing was used to give many interesting layers and depth, with an individual and unique range of textures and images, like layers of thoughts in ones mind. This was particularly shown in the pieces entitled ‘Desire Unspoken’ and ‘Hidden Society’. The range of colours used sometimes felt controlled and invocative of calm and yet in the paintings his sense of colour showed energy and at times were challenging, as in ‘Release’ and ‘Promethean’.
The male body was used extensively as the starting point to the paintings and etchings and featured in the strong and sensitive drawings that supported the artist’s work. I must mention the ‘Soliloquy’ series, which depicted a really controlled and deep feeling of emotion in the drawings where the quality of line was outstanding.
This was no ordinary show. It held me for some time and the images stayed in my memory for long afterwards. I felt joy, celebration, quietness and tranquillity in this very successful and engaging exhibition. Some of the textile pieces were forward looking in breaking new ground and employing a range of disciplines to create some very strong and meaningful statements. I must congratulate the artist and look forward to seeing his developing visual ideas in his next show.
