Catharsis

About

Entitled “Catharsis”, the show brings together prominent contemporary artists of the younger generation: the works of Deniz Yılmazlar| Karbon, Didem Yağcı, Mahmut Aydın, Manolya Çelikler, Metin Çelik and Orkide Akkoç Sabit are on view.

Having been taken from Aristotle’s work “Poetica”, where it stands for the effect of the tragedy upon the audience, the word “Catharsis” means purification and cleansing. A rhetoric, which symbolizes the soul becoming free and unbiased, the word describes spiritual transformation, and even the act of switching from one dimension to another (the Astral dimension) in order to establish this goal. Catharsis has been one of the fundamental concepts of art philosophy and its use in this context isn’t that much different from its daily use. But on a deeper level it points out an intellectual and spiritual purification and is seen as a condition for artistic creation.
In some of the works of the participating artists, these processes of transformation, change of dimension and purification are clearly stated, while in other works they are more difficult to spot.

Deniz Yılmazlar| Karbon questions the instant presence of the void after we lose someone. What remains for the Living -among other memorials- are the photographs and the void after the deceased people. Yılmazlar’s works are extremely original works which was produced on ceramic with printing techniques. The faces, stood still on the plaques, are scraped off within the Void and replaced with self silhouettes of the deceased – representing the remaining void. Then these newly created silhouette plaques are attached to the original photographs. Henceforth the new image of the individual in the photograph is a void instead of one’s own image. And the to-be-recollected image will rest underneath the void, unseen forever.

Didem Yağcı wants to make the audience be aware in what way we interpret the feelings in daily life in her works. She not only makes us interrogate the reasons underlying our drives and emotions which we experience, she also tries to make the auidence to realize that these emotions we have experienced are just “The Moments or Moods” for us to question the universal reality of our existence. Yağcı, -with her original technique- she tries to depicts those emotional states of figures in her composition with different patterns of fabrics and textures glued on the canvas or the old book pages. She also uses acrylic paints to separate the nonliving objects from the the figurative work.

Mahmut Aydın explores the relationship between the human-being as a socio-cultural creature and its environment in their constant interaction with each other. ln his figurative sculptures, he aims to shed light on the sensitivity of the body towards even the tiniest of changes imposed from the outside and its cuatinary attitude towards these changes. By contrasting geometrical forms with the human-body, the artist’s sculptures intend to reflect our development and mutations and the environmental, social, natural and artificial conditions that affect our free will as human-beings.

Manolya Çelikler has been working on different ways of expressing the notions that are social gender, identity and existence by means of ‘’sewing-needle’’ works which is accepted as unique property of women. Her works focus on alienation of not only woman but also different-marginal social groups. Using adverse features which are the consequences of this alienation constitute the major part of her work.

In Metin Çelik’s works, the metaphysical aesthetics of form is the first element one sees. The effect of alienization, simultaneity in space and interdisciplinary relationships, which contribute to the creation process of the composition within this framework, make up the other layers that constitute the identity of the artwork. In Çelik’s paintings, where figures take their form through deprivation of the modern man, a spiritual transformation takes place on the human body. Being deprived of time, emotion… Thus the deprived man loses his soul with this transformation and becomes an “object”. The presentation of this idea by the painting also points out the loss of identification. Preventing viewers from establishing emotional contact and keeping them as observers who possess intellectual attitude, this Brechtian aesthetics points out the alienating element that the artist tries to emphasize. Opposing catharsis at the level of consciousness, this approach encourages viewers to reach a rationalist conclusion, while making sure they stay where they are.

Orkide Akkoç Sabit says the following about her work entitled “Dark City”: “An uncanny, dark city. A place where the sun never rises. Can all our lives be an experimental setup? Between destiny and free will… A determined goal, a written life. People living in a labyrinth unaware that they are imprisoned in the dark city. What is the texture of the plane of time and space, the texture of the real? Is the reality we experience really the reality? A metaphor of the darkness of the human soul and the story of the unilluminatable and captive city, the labyrinth in captive minds.”

Purification –catharsis– is a way of finding oneself. We invite you to visit the “Catharsis” show between October 22nd – November 29th, 2015, so that you can listen to your inner voice.