4 – 31 JANUARY 2017
Contemporary sculpture artists, if we say it by degrading in the rich repertoire of abstract art, often use a hybrid expression language between geometric traditions and organic traditions. They also see this as an area, in which they could, for a starter, find reference points for new explorations. And the artists no longer believe that abstraction can carry them beyond the visible world, as the old masters did. The reality is no longer there. However, even tough they do not believe that they have a grasp of metaphysics secrets of the universe, they do believe in the relations and contacts with the essence. On the other hand, we no longer belong to a pure world. Thus, in today’s life, where everything is made visible, we cannot talk of a pure abstraction. The artist, under the effects of much stimulation, melted the borders between representation and abstraction, with the comfort of having used many elements in their work. Once we think that any material, as long as they are touching the inherent one and personal experience, is able to turn into an artistic expression, we can say that the borders related with materials could also melt. The accumulation of the art history and our current position provide artists with limitless expansions. So long as they could activate the belief to the pure and the inherent needs.
At this point, we can think of the relations of Aynur Önürmen, my wife, with the art of sculpturing. I can easily say that she is following a process, she is going through the obscurity of her own universe and she touches to multiple reference points as she is incrementally developing her productions. Years ago, when she exhibited her decorative-purposed works, her ability was remarkable. Through the marriage process and after she came to İstanbul, she wanted to engage in ceramic. She added the form and technic that she gained from ceramic and took on sculpturing. From the busts she did before, to the latest abstract sculptors, we can see that she is using a plain language. I must say that the forms Aynur embraces with looks stable and unhesitant at the first glance. This was not a consequence that she got out of working. It was like the reflection of a mood that she already had, on the material. We see that all these works, which seem as if they were pieces that aimed to be gathered, have a holistic effect at the end. She adopts a part to whole understanding. This understanding is compeletely distinct in her latest works, where she used different materials, especially sponge. She uses these sponge forms either the way she found from the waste materials or she manages new forms by cutting them. This attitude, in a sense, adducts her to Waste Art. These works, while making us think that we have a solid effect, bound us with an insecure effect. We can count these effects, which make audience question their –learned and imbedded in the subconscious- ideas about the permanence of sculpture, among the problems and solutions of the contemporary art. We can see that an abstract language is dominant in the form understanding of hers. She nourished from the fruitful garden of the abstract art, from Cubism to Minimalism and to Deconstrutivism, and she analysed the sculpture and architecture examples of those movements.
We are aware that the atelier we use together is the right place both for production and learning processes. She watched the production in this atelier and witnessed how different materials could turn into artistic statements. She started using different materials and developed an understanding of form in this experimental and free place. She mixed these experiences that would nourish her works in her own life and reflected on her productions with the purpose of creating a new language.
She developed the process, which started with shaping the clay, to an extent that to make waste materials and especially sponge the centre of her works. She created holistic forms with associations of organic form, by bringing partial geometric forms together and tried to attract new plastic effects by adding colour to the sponge sculptures. Aynur Önürmen’s works create themselves and give new forms chances to emerge. We could easily say that these sculptures have dynamism that satisfies us and they carry a strong aesthetic sense.
İrfan Önürmen
