Black Coffee Series Painting

95 x 230, acrylic on sack cloth 'Black Coffee' Series Coffee is a plant, a drink and also a social pattern. The word “coffee” meaning each a plant, the seed and the drink made out of that plant, gained a place between social codes within the ages and became a tool for communication and an indicator of some other thoughts too. There can be found countless examples for the coffee being a tool for communication and an indicator to some other thoughts. According to Anatolian traditions, a coffee is served to the guests with a glass of water next to it. If the guest drinks the water instead of coffee, he indicates that he is hungry, thus the host starts to prepare food. Again, in the ritual for “requesting the bride from her parents”, the bride nominee serves salt flavored coffee to the groom nominee in order to measure the strength of the desire he has for the marriage. In another example, a person who cooks the coffee with a thick foam is considered a good cook. Meral’s production process consists of two elements: drawing and writing. She makes mixed media drawings on found objects or surfaces like coffee sack and starched textile. And the writings are giving tips about the concept they belong, while making references to minstrels’ folk poems. She elaborately chooses her materials amongst the ones that can record the signs of the past and that have a memory. The movements and wrinkles on the draperies makes us recall the world wide trade of the goods such as coffee and red beet between east and west through the centuries. The artist examines black coffee both biologically and sociologically. And carries it beyond the sense of taste. As a viewer, while we’re watching it, we sense the smell and color of the grains came out of the seed, and the texture makes us recall the process of coffee being imported from the Latin America coasts to Europe and Asia through the ages. By means of this she undertakes a mission of a story teller and builds up a bridge between the rich coffee culture of the past and today with increasing usage of chemical processed coffee.