gözde ilkin

gözde ilkin

"Rehearsal"

artSümer will take place at Art International 14 with a solo booth by Gözde İlkin. İlkin's (1981, Kütahya-Turkey) new works on fabric and paper will be presented at Booth B6 at Haliç Congress Center.

“Together we are all rehearsing different states of social rupture.
As statements of a single voice repeated by different authorities seek to control our identities and ways of thinking, actions that disrupt all these attempts at domination propose a new modus operandi.
We are witnessing a puzzle of a government process that is neither reassuring nor predictable. We try to take part in this new course in the sheltered spaces we create, under our self-made layers of caution.
We get lost in contemplation, looking at the unknown void we don’t know how to intervene in or belong to. There are blind spots we often learn to live with or ignore...”

The pieces in “Rehearsal” came into view amid all these thoughts.

The result is the story of alliances incited by current hydra-headed, mutually encumbering government processes. Here, forms created with fabric, sewing, and paint on fabric come together in a composition akin to that of miniature art.

Rehearsal provides a map of the stance and state of contemplation in response to political rows, and societal regulations, put upon us like ill-fitted garments. “Forms of rapprochement/reconciliation” that circumvent these social conflicts with a novel language and gesture find expression in the visual realm.

The series Carnivorous stages figures of gouache on paper engirdled by carnivorous plants. A breathing space or a home for women, plants morph into traps for men.

Gözde İlkin (1981, Kütahya) studied painting at the Fine Arts Faculty of Mimar Sinan University and received her MFA at Marmara University in Istanbul. She has taken part in international artist exchange programs in the Netherlands and Germany and in exhibitions in several centers, including Stockholm, Rotterdam, New York, Berlin, Paris, Munich and Belgrade. In Turkey, her works have been displayed in many venues, such as Istanbul Modern Museum, Siemens Sanat, Hafriyat, Karşı Sanat, and Tobacco Warehouse. She was a member of the artist initiative, Atılkunst, between 2006-2013. Gözde İlkin lives and works in Istanbul.