Monday, February 15, 2010

Zozan and Hezal, 1996, Woodcut, 18x11 cm


Loneliness , 2002, etching, 9x12 cm


Serhad’s engraving work

The first time I tried my hand in engraving was by necessity. Sought by the police of the Turkish junta I had to change the photo of an identity that I had found. I thus engraved on a piece of plastic floor, a matching embossed stamp and I printed it onto a photo of mine. With this identity I had passed through police and junta round-ups many times until I left my home in Kurdistan and arrived in Greece as a political refugee.


Walls of Amed 2001, etching 29.5x 73 cm.

After 1987 when I was a student in the School of Fine Arts in Thessaloniki I came into contact with the process of printing an engraving project. While working on the model we had in the laboratory of the School and under very strict rules of standardization, I found in engraving a field of expression and liberation at the same time, away from that of the academic requirements, where I could move freely and above all one into which I could experiment. So I graduated from the School in 1997 and stepping out of my comfort zone, added in my thesis work around 20 engravings. All these years my relationship with engraving remained active and fertile. I preferred my first solo exhibition which I presented in 1997, to be an engraving one. Of course, when I say engraving I mean mainly the wood engraving or linografia, black and white or colorful since I had no press to print my etching. When in 1998 I heard that a mechanic here in Epanomi could make etching presses, I was one of the first then who ordered a press. The alluring qualities of etching which allows you to develop the space better and in more detailed approach along with its tonal graduations and embossed engraving, have been carrying me away all these years.


Village 1, 2000, etching, 24.5x 39 cm.

Later in 2000 when I saw the new labs in the School of Fine Arts of Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki in Thermi and I had already known active and cooperative teachers of engraving since years, this department was a new challenge for me. So, although I had been serving as a secondary education teacher of art since 1997, I was now about to begin studying again, this time as a student of Engraving in the school of Fine Arts, in my effort to see knowledge as well as interaction in common venues, one which, a school is.
Serhad Bapir

From the “Panselinos” , issue 141, may 19, 2002.
Weekly newspaper of “Macedonia”, Thessaloniki, Greece.