Unofficial Parade of the Fragile Iconic Images
Elif Dastarlı
It's not the gift of the first moment, to understand that “sympathetic submission” is not submission, by empathy. Discovering the mischief is only possible at the second moment. The impact power of that second moment, is expectant to being the the only occupation of those highly belligerent minds. Happy is the man, who may add presumptions too, to those happenings!...
Playing games with words, like Ahmet Sarı plays on the canvas with colours and patterns, brings an absurd blackout with it like this. Mischief is in his character! One step before, as he was making abstractions with major yellow colours and lively tones, and in his last exhibitions, the artist was thinking hard on the animals' willpower, and even more, he was pursuing oxes. He was taking his revenge in a personal way from the universe, using the life of the oxes, for the “being a thing” pathology , which appears during the mandatory military service era. For him, getting used to, was the first and the biggest step to perishing. And this basis still appears to be there, right where it stands. And the case of losing one's own will starts to give itself away right here. Sarı, disclosed the dilemma of the city people who lose their own wills, selves, and their origins, becoming more like castrated oxes everyday, with his mischievous attitude. This time, the artist is hurled to different places as he deepens the dimensions with his new exhibition.
With the oxes that he qualifies “symbols of Anatolia”, his irony -maybe not itself, but representation of it, also other animals entered his canvas. The enermous “Golden Hedgehog”, just stands there as a strange form, attracting the looks to the middle, from the outside. Its spines are a respectful reference to the holy virgin! “The cool hedgehog” is very hard to get near, because of all his arrogance... The spitting champion Llama is all the time ready to spit on you, and staring at you through the canvas. “Soul Twin” is a strange ostrich that's open to psychanalitical reading, but self-repeating and sunk into its dilemma! “The Father” is such a huge and ugly head that he has the appreciation, fear, acceptance, denial, feeling out, judging, regret and curiosity, evil and goodwill... he has all!... “The Fashion Icon” a strange, sheepling lamb, deprived of his hide, wearing the same hide as a houte-couture creation, and this situation's paradox... “7 Continents”, just like its artist, a kangaroo, lacking the geographical attachment, unable to change the conditions... These and many more animals of the wonderland, come into life with every peek of the audience, in Ahmet Sarı's paintings.
And the presentation of the painting's protagonist, that he uses in his big canvas on its own, strengthens the claims of each. Even if a little, we see that the expressive strong attitude, is softened with the figure's importance gain. Various plastic pursues of value, may turn into an intervention of everything about the space into each other in these paintings. Sometimes, typograpcihal interferences into thecanvas, application of the newspaper crossword puzzles to the ground , adds a thousand more question marks to the self-appointed obscurity of them, gaining a spotty effect with the usge of circular templates; all these, is like an experience of what he'll do next and he builds as he finishes the composition. Both for the artist, and the painting discipline, many innovations are in question in these paintings. Usage of the vehicle paint is just one of them. The audience, facing the instant disintegrations of the organic forms, may miss the ground texture as his/her mind is occupied with the flowing dyes, that take the looks away from the figure. But there's much hidden there! For example, bubbled nylon's first being painted with automotive paint and being quick-heated and applied to the surface as an imprint is a new technique, and expectant to new impressions. Quite differently, three different productions raise their anomalous voices from another side! Copper, is an element that just stays there like it'll be “used anytime” and the artist finally used that! Attributing different meanings to the material, may be read as an inevitable result of true life experience.
In his cold loft workshop, copper material with its warm evocations and hot water bag, his “best friend”, becomes the desire material of those who know what cold is, the bag becomes itself the human body, in “Hot Presentation”. And another artwork that he applied artisan labor, the “Father crossword”, brings in front of us, the universal “father problem” by using a bulldog, a maze hidden on his body. And it's also possible to pursue holiness in its metallic radiance.
The mood it reflects getting help from the puzzle form it has, gives away the artist's calculations that he has in mind, to the eyes that know how to read it. Small clues of shifts from the spatial harmony of animals, to the human shapes, and in the next step, a sign of the shift in a sympathetical way and into new empathies with broken iconic images of the varying forms of relations in the representation problem.
Elif Dastarlı
It's not the gift of the first moment, to understand that “sympathetic submission” is not submission, by empathy. Discovering the mischief is only possible at the second moment. The impact power of that second moment, is expectant to being the the only occupation of those highly belligerent minds. Happy is the man, who may add presumptions too, to those happenings!...
Playing games with words, like Ahmet Sarı plays on the canvas with colours and patterns, brings an absurd blackout with it like this. Mischief is in his character! One step before, as he was making abstractions with major yellow colours and lively tones, and in his last exhibitions, the artist was thinking hard on the animals' willpower, and even more, he was pursuing oxes. He was taking his revenge in a personal way from the universe, using the life of the oxes, for the “being a thing” pathology , which appears during the mandatory military service era. For him, getting used to, was the first and the biggest step to perishing. And this basis still appears to be there, right where it stands. And the case of losing one's own will starts to give itself away right here. Sarı, disclosed the dilemma of the city people who lose their own wills, selves, and their origins, becoming more like castrated oxes everyday, with his mischievous attitude. This time, the artist is hurled to different places as he deepens the dimensions with his new exhibition.
With the oxes that he qualifies “symbols of Anatolia”, his irony -maybe not itself, but representation of it, also other animals entered his canvas. The enermous “Golden Hedgehog”, just stands there as a strange form, attracting the looks to the middle, from the outside. Its spines are a respectful reference to the holy virgin! “The cool hedgehog” is very hard to get near, because of all his arrogance... The spitting champion Llama is all the time ready to spit on you, and staring at you through the canvas. “Soul Twin” is a strange ostrich that's open to psychanalitical reading, but self-repeating and sunk into its dilemma! “The Father” is such a huge and ugly head that he has the appreciation, fear, acceptance, denial, feeling out, judging, regret and curiosity, evil and goodwill... he has all!... “The Fashion Icon” a strange, sheepling lamb, deprived of his hide, wearing the same hide as a houte-couture creation, and this situation's paradox... “7 Continents”, just like its artist, a kangaroo, lacking the geographical attachment, unable to change the conditions... These and many more animals of the wonderland, come into life with every peek of the audience, in Ahmet Sarı's paintings.
And the presentation of the painting's protagonist, that he uses in his big canvas on its own, strengthens the claims of each. Even if a little, we see that the expressive strong attitude, is softened with the figure's importance gain. Various plastic pursues of value, may turn into an intervention of everything about the space into each other in these paintings. Sometimes, typograpcihal interferences into thecanvas, application of the newspaper crossword puzzles to the ground , adds a thousand more question marks to the self-appointed obscurity of them, gaining a spotty effect with the usge of circular templates; all these, is like an experience of what he'll do next and he builds as he finishes the composition. Both for the artist, and the painting discipline, many innovations are in question in these paintings. Usage of the vehicle paint is just one of them. The audience, facing the instant disintegrations of the organic forms, may miss the ground texture as his/her mind is occupied with the flowing dyes, that take the looks away from the figure. But there's much hidden there! For example, bubbled nylon's first being painted with automotive paint and being quick-heated and applied to the surface as an imprint is a new technique, and expectant to new impressions. Quite differently, three different productions raise their anomalous voices from another side! Copper, is an element that just stays there like it'll be “used anytime” and the artist finally used that! Attributing different meanings to the material, may be read as an inevitable result of true life experience.
In his cold loft workshop, copper material with its warm evocations and hot water bag, his “best friend”, becomes the desire material of those who know what cold is, the bag becomes itself the human body, in “Hot Presentation”. And another artwork that he applied artisan labor, the “Father crossword”, brings in front of us, the universal “father problem” by using a bulldog, a maze hidden on his body. And it's also possible to pursue holiness in its metallic radiance.
The mood it reflects getting help from the puzzle form it has, gives away the artist's calculations that he has in mind, to the eyes that know how to read it. Small clues of shifts from the spatial harmony of animals, to the human shapes, and in the next step, a sign of the shift in a sympathetical way and into new empathies with broken iconic images of the varying forms of relations in the representation problem.