Forest Heart Wood Picture

What I have learned from years of working with chisels and carving tools is that a cut does not in fact remove bits of wood, but that it reveals other hidden patterns of one piece. I have realized over time that the angle of each cut can greatly alter the patterns, textures, light reflections, and even the visual characters of the revealed parts of wood. Gaining such an experience has given me a deeper understanding that wood carving is not merely creating decorative elements, but is growing a form of natural memory. Throughout its life, each tree records its growth history, tensions, wounds, repairs, and environmental conditions in its body and circles, and this information remains alive in the color, texture, and patterns of the wood. In the marquetry literature, including words used by recognised marquetry societies and the artists of many prominent works, great emphasis has been frequently placed on the significance of deciding on the right wood patterns and textures. Despite all these, there have been questions occupying my mind: While the role of wood is that important, why is it that the predetermined image is still considered the starting point of the marquetry practice? Can this procedure be reversed? Is it possible to extract the image from within the wood patterns, rather than having the patterns serve the image? Naqshbandi was in fact established from my search to answer such questions. In other words, the path to define what I call today "Naqshbandi" began not with marquetry, but with wood carving. In the work, "Forest Heart", I did not create the image of wood pieces; rather, I tried to study the visual capacities present in different species of wood and let them themselves create the image. From such a point of view, Naqshbandi is not simply a technique; it is actually a change in the way we look at wood and its nature; a shift from representing the nature to cooperating with it.

In many common approaches to marquetry, wood effectively is devalued to a color palette. But for me, each piece of wood has an independent visual language, one that was formed in the nature even before the artist was born. So, on selecting the woods, I had an approach based on three fundamental characteristics: color, texture, and pattern. Along with these three characteristics, I also considered other features such as color contrast, complementary colors, and color tonality. However, the main difference was that I did not try to use wood to add color; rather, I tried to reveal the natural capacities of wood itself. Furthermore, an important procedure in creating this marquetry work was accepting the unexpected. For instance, I initially decided to have the bird yellow, with only the tail remaining like the initial image. But then I came across pieces of wood whose natural patterns wonderfully resembled the patterns of the ending feathers of the wing. Although their color was close to the copper tonality, the visual power of these natural patterns was fine enough to make me abandon my earlier decision. In another step, a crack resulted from the tree's natural healing process had completely naturally shaped a pattern like the bird's shoulder, creating a sense of volume and prominence without any human intervention. Such moments are very important to me, for they show that the artist is not always the sole creator of the image; at times, the nature, too, plays an active role in the process of creation. For this reason, I believe that in Naqshbandi, the nature is not simply the subject of the work; rather, it is one of the co-creators of the work.

The "double-cut" technique was the result of an effort to overcome limitations of conventional methods in marquetry where pieces are commonly cut independently based on pre-designed patterns and then placed next to each other without requiring artists to interact creatively with their work. Besides, although such a method could sound very efficient at work, it can generally limit the capacities of wood to react freely to natural circumstances, and sometimes subtle traces of the cutting lines remain noticeable at the joining borders of the pieces. On the other hand, by the "double-cut" technique, each piece complements the previous pieces, and simultaneously each cut is in line with the border of the new piece. As a result, pieces fit in the most precisely and without noticeable lines left. In other words, each cut that is made by the artist is considered twice in the work procedures. If pattern-based methods are mostly designed to reproduce an image, the "double-cut" technique has been developed to discover an image. However, technical accuracy is not the main feature that makes the "double-cut" significantly different. Eliminating total dependence on fixed cutting patterns allows the artist to look back at previous cuts and pieces repeatedly throughout the work procedures and make new decisions based on newly formed wood patterns and also based on the connections that emerge between the wood pieces; rather than deciding based on pre-designed picture patterns. In fact, this technique was developed to meet a philosophical need: If the image is to be discovered from among wood patterns, the process of work must also allow for discovery. From this point of view, not only is the "double-cut" an executive innovation, it is also a necessary technical tool for realizing Naqshbandi's view.