Seven years ago, on the occasion of an exhibition, Fadime Baltacıoğlu Salman stated that she reached the rules of beauty through a synthesis of accumulated knowledge and intuition. She stated that she had taken all the necessary lessons, learned painting techniques, and mastered the main rules of painting; however, whether it be drawing, watercolor, or oil painting, when she sets out to paint, she does not think of anything she has learned or mastered, but only listens to her inner voice, which always tells her what to do. Yet, when looking at her drawings, watercolors, or oil paintings, it immediately becomes clear that she listened intently to her teacher Cuda during her early years of education; for instance, she examined her model meticulously as he repeatedly advised, and learned very well what to discard and what to keep when composing her painting, as well as how to frame her object or objects.
For Fadime, the line is truly the foundation and the backbone of the drawing, just as Bedros Reis decreed years ago. Furthermore, it is the essence and the core of her composition/arrangement. She constructs her paintings with lively, vibrating lines—the products of pens, charcoal, India ink, or brushes of varying thicknesses.
With these vibrating lines, for example, Fadime has depicted still lifes that are not dead, but living, and in a sense, even moving. "Living still lifes"... Her still lifes draw their life (or one might say, their soul) from the line. Fundamentally, every type of Fadime’s work draws its soul from the line. Not only her drawings but also her watercolors and oil paintings are works dominated by the line. That is to say, they are drawing-heavy. In Fadime’s work, drawing is—just as Degas said—an interpretation of form and nature. Nothing, no object subjected to the painting, is seen exactly as it is; it is reflected in her depictions as it is perceived, or as the artist wishes it to be seen. Furthermore, she adds a sense of lyricism to her watercolor and oil drawings by utilizing color. This lyricism is somewhat excluded in her large-scale, colorless drawings (e.g., Joseph and Zulaikha, etc.) made in what she calls her “capillary-textured linear style”; here, the concern for achieving a more expressive narrative comes to the fore. This “capillary-textured linear style” was inspired by the hair covering the human body. It is a technique conceived after seeing the thick, curly-haired arms of a male customer at a neighboring table in a café where she was sitting with a friend. On the other hand, beyond the technique itself, her large-scale drawings are also an indication that Fadime prefers the challenging path.
It must be appreciated that weaving these drawings inch by inch while climbing a portable ladder with huge sheets of paper hung on the wall—in a position that can hardly be called comfortable—is nothing like working on canvases placed on easels or papers and cardboards spread on tables. It is clear that it requires much more effort, at least physically. Moreover, those in the know understand how arduous it is to realize small fragments that will form a whole over a wide area that cannot be perceived in a single glance. In summary, what must be emphasized is this: whether in the “capillary-textured linear style” or not, Fadime Baltacıoğlu Salman continues to produce works that justify Ingres, who said, “Drawing is the integrity and the abundance of art.”
