Immerse yourself in (moving) image worlds with Bilge Emir

Today is a very special day at “Ephra on the road” – a real premiere – because for the first time an artist is a guest at Ephra’s and not the other way around. This is because Bilge Emir’s studio is so small that we wouldn’t all have fit in, but we still really want to get to know the artist and her work better. Fortunately, many of her works are small and handy, which is why she brings a whole slew of them to the Ephra Studio. Bilge is not a sculptor or anything, but a draughtswoman and illustrator!

As we enter, we discover interesting-looking things on a table on the wall that we would like to inspect more closely... but first we talk to the artist and ask her a few questions.

Bilge was born in Turkey and came to Berlin to study at the Weißensee School of Art. But how did she get the idea to study art in the first place? Bilge answers that she already drew a lot as a child and also took art courses again and again at grammar school, so that the desire to study art grew and grew. And what exactly interests her about art? Bilge tells us that drawing helps her think about things differently and process feelings. She gets inspiration from daily life, what she sees and experiences on the street, dreams and emotions. And even when she’s bored, a blank sheet of paper and a pencil in her hand reliably takes her mind off things; just like when she looks at art by others – then the boredom is quickly over.

This is probably one of the reasons why she has many friends who also draw. When Bilge meets up with them, they often develop comics together or draw together on large sheets of paper. A little thoughtfully, she admits that the boundaries between work and leisure as an artist quickly become blurred. On the other hand, Bilge also finds it great to do what she loves every day.

And so Bilge always has one (no – several!) sketchbooks with her: very small formats for the park and exhibitions or somewhat larger ones for visits to cafés and meetings with friends. Only the really big and bulky books usually have to stay at home. Bilge also likes to use her iPad with a drawing app on it. The advantage over analogue techniques (such as paper and pen) is that she has to carry less material around with her and it makes it much easier to work on animations.

We’re already pretty familiar with this kind of video, and of course we know that countless individual drawings are shown one after the other so quickly that the brain thinks they're actually in motion. (And that's exactly how flipbooks work, one of us notes.) This requires very precise planning of how a figure should move... and when drawing on the iPad, it’s much easier to undo mistakes. (Actually, it’s hard to believe that all cartoons and animated films used to be drawn in analogue. That must have taken ages!)

What Bilge finds fascinating about – supposedly – motionless comics is that comics can also show movement from one image to the next. The difference is that readers can take much more time for the individual images and immerse themselves in them for as long as they like. And that is exactly what we are doing now with Bilge's works, which are spread out on the table like on an altar. Bilge has brought many different things with her: towels with her drawings on them, filled notebooks, comics and magazines where each page has been designed by a different artist. We look at everything very closely and discover that Bilge has a preference for blue and red. She thinks the colours go well together and her favourite days are when the sky is blue.

Afterwards, inspired by Bilge’s work, we all draw our own little comic: a wide variety of stories in different styles emerge with all kinds of characters – Hinata, a ninja, a cat and even a triangle. For some, the ideas literally bubble straight onto the paper, for others of us it’s less quick. Luckily, Bilge is by our side to give us tips when inspiration is lacking. Unfortunately, time goes by so fast that we don’t all finish. But we still intend to finish drawing our stories.

What makes us especially happy is that when we leave the Ephra Studio, the sky is cloudless and blue – just the way Bilge likes it.