"REFLECTION"
2O17
The Installation “Reflection”, in which the past and the present are merged, consists of different layers born out of the fertility of the “three” main concepts that underlie the project: the universe, the human being in the universe, and the human in the human being... “Power”, born out of the human being and which I identify as their biggest weakness, constitutes the dominant atmosphere of the installation, and this air, inhaled by the human being, quietly destroys them. Until their face is completely dissolved, and nothing human is left...
Queen Victoria, who reigned for close to a century with her authority and gave her name to the ‘Victorian Period’ in the history of art, was my biggest inspiration in this sense, and is the “POWER” in the installation. The main background of my work, which references art history and Space science, is a star map wallpaper I created, inspired by Robert Gober and astronomer Johann Bayer. I created a new sky map and a universe by overlaying the sky map at the time of Victoria’s birth with the present sky map, based on Bayer’s 1603 sky atlas named “Uranometria”. The snake figure on the background, which carries the whole work on its folds and is also based on “Uranometria”, represents the snake that symbolizes Ophiuchus star cluster, which dominated the sky at the time. The oil portrait I placed on the head of the snake, which pictures Queen Victoria as a white lamb in a wedding dress, was inspired by a portrait prepared by Franz Xaver Winterhalt, a painter for the royal family, at the request of the Queen. The icon, which I made of pure gold, is mounted on the uppermost fold of the snake. The naked female body on the tail, partially in the shadows, is a pattern work I created by overlaying one of a series of erotic photographs by Auguste Belloc, taken in 1840s, with shadows. The wooden writing desk with nothing on it is placed at the bottom of the installation, and represents censured art in the period, literature in particular. Finally, the monkey portrait in a black, almost cage like frame, is the human being itself, with all its convolutions...
HAS BEEN EXHIBITED AT:
Istanbul-Kasa Galeri
"Road to Tirana" group show
01 February - 08 March 2017
Tirana
"18th Biennale of Young Artists from Europe
and the Mediterranean"
04 – 28 May 2017
