Ebru Özseçen: True Love Soul Mate / RAMPA Istanbul, Turkey

Ebru Özseçen: True Love Soul Mate / RAMPA İstanbul, Turkey
March 02 — April 07, 2012

Ebru Özseçen combines her experience in the fields of architecture, design and contemporary art to explore different aspects of psychological and sociological relationship between space and body. Her work presents great diversity; ranging from urban intervention to sculpture and objects, from photography to video, from film installations to drawings. The artist is concerned with the dualities of inside/ outside and public/private; and explores individual memory in contemporary society. Ebru Özseçen investigates the seemingly mundane to expose its magical and unseen aspects. She reveals a space where fantasy and memory hide in plain sight.

It is impossible to disregard the gender aspect in Özseçen’s work, in which she indiscriminately plays with the androgynous form – the phallus, vulva, uterus or scrotum. At times pushing the boundaries of pornographic obscenity, the artist always places erotic intensity in the foreground. On the other hand, in many of her works it is possible to see Özseçen driven by her deep-seated admiration for the tradition of artisanship. The artist is drawn to the sensual quality of the form and the beauty of a well-accomplished object. This approach invites us to interpret the artist’s practice from a new perspective. Özseçen’s sharp gaze on the form, and her romantic obsession with the beautiful, the pure, and the unsoiled confront us as sharp yet sensitive, violent yet graceful works that have been refined in the hands of a craftsman.

Özseçen’s new work, Gerçek Aşk Gönül Eşi / True Love Soul Mate (2011), which will constitute the backbone of the exhibition at Rampa, is comprised of over 100 separate glass pieces. This work is realized in collaboration with Mayer of Munich and Glasshütte Lamberts, which are among the most prominent handmade glass studios of the world that has for the first time opened its doors to contemporary arts for this work. Each piece is produced in different sizes and forms with hours of effort in 1450-degree ovens. Recalling many of Özseçen’s work, heat once more emerges as a dominating component in this work, both as a physical force and as an allegory. For this work, the artist divulges that “the concept of true love and soul mate employed in the title should be sought not in the realm of romantic love, but rather in companionship, camaraderie as signified in the craftsman’s delicate touch on the objects he has amorously devoted himself to.” Installing two of her works of the same form together, one from the beginning and the other from the most recent phase of her career, Özseçen incites the audience to trace a playful phantom form.

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MODERN TALKING, Museum of Art Cluj-Napoca, Romania

MODERN TALKING, Museum of Art Cluj-Napoca, Romania
February 15 - April 15, 2012

The Museum of Art in Cluj-Napoca is hosting the group exhibition entitled “Modern Talking”, featuring contemporary artists whose works are challenging the conventions of painting and its legacy. Through the work of the invited artists, the visitor will be able to re-conceptualize the traditional acception of painting, which is no longer restricted to the oil-on-canvas formula, but offers a multitude of other alternatives. Fabric, metal, found objects, conceptual statements, flamboyant actions, installations and sculptures, all of these are putting forward an extended understanding of the medium; today, painting is expanded, painting is overall.

Artists:
Sonia Almeida (PT); Mark Barrow (US); Baldur Geir Bragason (IS); Vittorio Brodmann (CH); Ana Cardoso (PT); Aline Cautis (US); Radu Comşa (RO); Ann Craven (US); Francesca DiMattio (US); Ida Ekblad (NO); Enzo Giordano (IT); Heather Guertin (US); Davíð Örn Halldórsson (IS); Ingunn Fjóla Ingþórsdóttir (IS); Jacob Kassay (US); Gilda Mautone (IT); Florin Maxa (RO); Dan Măciucă (RO); Elizabeth Neel (US); Ylva Ogland (SE); Paloma Presents [Urs Zahn & Roman Gysin] (CH); Zak Prekop (US); Jo Robertson (UK); Małgorzata Szymankiewicz (PL); Patricia Treib (US); Daniel Turner (US); Garth Weiser (US).

Special project by Sarah Ortmeyer (DE).

Organizers: Nicola Trezzi and Daria D. Pervain, in collaboration with Ewa Gorządek, Helena Kontova, and Giancarlo Politi.

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Martha Cashman, Miranda Daly & Angie Shanahan Exhibition - West Cork Arts Centre

Martha Cashman, Miranda Daly & Angie Shanahan - A Different Dimension, West Cork Arts Centre
26 November, 2011 - 14 January, 2012

Martha Cashman, ceramic artist; Miranda Daly, film-maker and Angie Shanahan, painter present an exhibition exploring a narrative of the former Wolfe’s Bakery in Skibbereen, West Cork.

The artists are interested in the transition from one state of being to another and in conveying a sense of past human activity and industrial output associated with this building.
Wolfe’s Bakery is the site for the planned new building for West Cork Arts Centre.

The artists will present a Talk in the Gallery on Thursday 12 January 2012 at 1.30pm, and Inma Pavon, dancer, will present a performance in response to the work in the gallery on: Saturday, 14 January at 3.00 pm.

Project Description - Wolfe’s Bakery:

“A disused industrial building in the centre of Skibbereen town - formerly Wolfe’s Bakery - destined for demolition. Due to be rebuilt as the new West Cork Art Centre.”

Miranda Daly, film maker and employee in the West Cork Art Centre approached Martha Cashman, ceramic artist and me Angie Shanahan, painter, with the initial concept.
The concept; to encompass through three distinct disciplines within the arts, ceramics, film and painting a unique exhibition which will capture the essence and deliver the narrative of the former Wolfe’s Bakery.

As artists, all three of us are interested in the archival documentation of transition from one state of being to another. This element of change is especially appealing when it contains an architectural and historical nuance conveying a sense of past human activity and industrial output.
We believe the former Wolfe’s Bakery in the centre of Skibbereen town perfectly encapsulates these elements.
Fundraising for the new West Cork Art Centre has become a dynamic force within the town and beyond and is an exciting prospect.
Our aim is to create a similar dynamic force and form discursive interaction between us as artists and the people of the West Cork peninsula. A parallel symmetry between what was, and what will be.
Through our proposed exhibition with catalogue, we would like to prepare a visual narrative of the life of this old Bakery before its demolition.
Allied with the verbal expressions of interest we have received from people in the business community towards this project, we believe the participation of The Arts Council through the awarding of an essential grant will help us to prepare and present an exciting exhibition in the latter part of 2011.

West Cork Arts Centre - North Street, Skibbereen, Co Cork, Ireland

Phone: + 353 28 22090
Fax: + 353 28 23237
Email: info@westcorkartscentre.com

Opening Hours: Monday - Saturday, 10.00 am - 5.00 pm

WCAC acknowledges the financial support of the Arts Council in making this exhibition possible.

Signe Schjøth

Signe Schjøth’s profile on Ceramics Now Magazine - View her works

“I work process-oriented with the examination of form, which in its presence appears in organic shapes and in rhythmic lines in motion. The starting point was the idea of a flower as a radiant energy and elegance both remarkable and luxuriant, a testament to the existence of everyday miracles. The creation of an aesthetic, sensuous, material object has always been the essence of my work, but the objects have since 2002 become more abstract. At the moment I am asking myself: Is it possible by combining or colliding senses to reach a more complex form? That is my ambition.

All my works are hand-built. To achieve a sense of elegance and fragility the shapes are made thin in comparison to their size. Furthermore I have put a lot of effort into achieving a harmonic surface and a defined access of lines to intensify the character of each object.

The surfaces maintain a texture which reflects the depth and sensuous presence of forms found in nature. Together these accentuate the overall tactile quality of the works.” Signe Schjøth

Born in Copenhagen in 1974, Signe Schjøth was trained at the Ceramic School of Bornholm (1999 – 2002) and since then she has been selected for several international exhibitions.

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