BIO

My art practice explores the relationship between industrial objects, machines and human beings. The dependence and reliance on the machine in everyday life. Machines as a constructing tool, maintaining other objects or machines as an element of destruction. 

What happens with machines when they are neglected? How a machine's functions could be changed by human absence. What stories could be uncovered by looking at the ruins of the machine? How does the overconsumption of home appliances and devices change the look of the environment around humans?

 I approach answering this question through paintings, drawings and sculpture. To work with objects such as sculpture I use methods that are related to my subject matter such as destruction, recycling and reconstructing. I collect found objects from skip or scrap stores such as appliance or machinery parts and open them to a different meaning out of their conventional context. I like the way part’s materials can speak of the subject matter for itself and unveil the story behind it. Working with a surface part is bipolar for me. Whether I'm leaving it uncovered with its richness or simplicity of object texture or the opposite -  by use of artificial colour of paint to manipulate its positioning. I might pull it out of attention or bring it into focus by fabricating its coating. Playing with the surfaces of the object sometimes becomes for me a subject itself. By specific application of paint and by using paint as a binder for small particles like marble dust, textile fluff, fibre, wood pulp, and sand I gain a variety of textures. 

Textile fluff is specifically important to link my thinking of humans and machines in one place through material use. Textile, for me, is inseparably the material that strongly attaches to the human as it covers over bodies or part of objects that touch our bodies while being used. It holds our sweat and smell, our dead skin and hair. Its dust holds human and industrial particles. None of the textile fabrics are produced by hand and require industrial big-scale machines. I found it fascinating to juxtaposition textile material to the metal, as a common material of machine body materials.  Textile is a material of transition.

Sculpture movement in flux is a way for me to express the purposeless state of an object or the possibility of being self-sufficient. The use of floating objects symbolizes to me the suspended state of objects and humans in time.

When it comes to images I applied them to surfaces of a different nature. While it's a painting I continue to experiment with its sculptural qualities Materials like cotton or linen, wooden or MDF board, cardboard or aluminium panels help me to reveal this quality. Through the use of the material and shape of the painting, I continue the dialogue with pictorial images through different dimensionalities.

In the pictorial dimension, for the abstract pieces I use a method of simplification of forms from the real world which I observe under different angles and flatten down into geometrical forms. I use construction by building up lines and shapes gradually and at the same time raising the level on the surface of certain shapes with cold wax and mixed into the medium additive particles.

I use the grid method to generate the structure of an image. Sharp strictly ordered edges contrast to the irregular texture within the shapes. This use of visual language helps me to talk about rules and controlled movement that are the basis for machines' operation as opposed to the irregularity and diversity of human behaviour. But humans hold both irregularity and system in its life circulation.

The surface becomes the subject matter not only as an object part but also as a metaphorical meaning. I explore it through the portraits. How could a surface be a face? When does the face become just a surface? The surface of human personality or the surface of the robotic machine?  Why do we make machines with human looks? What does embodiment with human attributes do to machines?

How does interaction with machines affect humans? I'm curious to look at humans from the angle of becoming a machine. Productive machine, creative machine or even killing machine. I'm questioning what qualities enforce that humane state and revisit it through my textural portraits. I experiment with colour and facial expression to emphasise this relationship. How is it to live the life of a machine through the human body?

In my painting process when it comes to choosing the medium I rely on the surface and its chemical and physical ability to hold the paint. That's why I would describe myself as a mixed media artist but primarily working with oil paint in a combination with cold wax and acrylics. In my drawing process, I use watercolours, acrylic markers and lightfast coloured pencils.