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Trained as a painter, Onurmen developed a unique artistic language to
investigate urban life and everyday experiences. In his artistic
practice, he uses two modes for rendering his ideas. In one approach, he
paints on layers of tulle, a feminine, transparent, delicate, light
material used for bride’s veils while in the other he transforms old
newspapers into masculine, opaque, rough, hard three dimensional
objects. Aiming to fit the mode of expression to the concept, he uses
the former when looking at delicate private situations and the later for
harsh political and social issues. With both of these methods, he
investigates depth as a painterly or sculptural element and as a
dimension of contemporary life.
As the main artist for the
gallery, Pi Artworks, in recent years, Onurmen has won acclaim as one of
the most outstanding contemporary artists in Istanbul. Working with
abstracted drawings that he makes from newspaper or magazine clippings
of cosmopolitan strangers, Onurmen creates either what he calls
“Pentulle”, layers of painted tulle cloth hung on the wall, or
“Sculptulle”, layers of tulle arranged in Plexiglas cases to be viewed
from all sides. His “Pentulle”, In the room, (2002) first exhibited in a
solo show at Pi Artworks, is now in the IstanbulModern private
collection. Like the other work in this series, this piece analyzes
contemporary live and changes a private scene into a delicate, beautiful
yet layered statement. In “Untitled” (2004) solitary individuals after
visiting a bar, smoke, and stand side by side yet alone in a crowded
street. After deconstructing a clipping by reducing the image to shape,
line and separating the gradations of colors, he paints these separate
elements onto pieces of tulle and reassembles the resulting pictorial
forms in separate yet superimposed layers that again connect together
visually. Up close, the spectator sees nothing; only from a distance
does the private become public as the spectator’s eye allows the layers
of transparent cloth to merge into a discernable, yet allusive form. Due
to the flimsy grainy quality of the fabric, faces, figures, exteriors,
and interiors become blurred and the rendered scenes become anonymous.
Showing isolated, uncommunicative people who move through rooms, ride in
taxis, walk in streets, go to work, frequent bars, dress and undress,
these delicate works present the private, the individual, and the
personal side of urban existence. In Onurmen’s world of illusion
alienation of the passing moment and lack of intimacy becomes both
ephemeral and beautiful.
At PiArtworks in the spring of 2009,
Onurmen opened an exhibition that he named “Panic”. Using his
three-dimensional objects constructed from newspapers, in the sixth of
his “Archive” series, he investigated another political and public
dimension of today’s existence. Just like his recycled newspaper
sculptures, the panic felt today is a socially and culturally recycled
brand generated by sensational stories from the media. By fossilizing
newsprint, by rendering the readable unreadable, Onurmen attempts to
neutralize his feeling of panic. By giving fear a concrete form the
mysterious specter becomes reachable and seems to be at least a bit
under his control. What can be a more appropriate art material for a
world in which the news in media is monopolized by corporations or
government? What could be more significant at a time when politicians
generate fear in order to control and manipulate the public?
Years
before Onurmen began this sculptural series, he collected not only his
own discarded newspapers, but also those thrown away by neighbors.
Systematically he cut out and classified images of floods, murders,
political assassination, war, forest fires, beautiful women, night life,
people in the streets, objects of desire, cars, high society figures,
cinema icons, cars, economic references etc. When he began the first of
these projects, he realized he needed to collect newspapers for five to
six months to make even one object. For these works, layers of
newspapers and layers of glue mix as he works with depth and space to
make a ten cm. thick relief that may stand alone in the center of the
gallery as a type of labyrinth, Circuit, (2009) or hang on the wall,
Ear, (2009). These constructions make a new statement about contemporary
life, show a picture of his city, tell a story about paranoid
relationships, or connect seemingly unrelated objects and people.
He
plays with size. Sometimes objects are near reality, sometimes
exaggerated, at other times diminished. For example, Knife, (2009) the
two-meter knife paper sculpture in the window of this exhibition refers
to the tool he uses to cut away the layers of newspaper to create shapes
or reveal images hidden underneath as well as to the most frequently
used lethal weapon for murders in urban cities. Leaving the surfaces
unpainted and seemingly unfinished, he works with texture as he
juxtapositions diverse, unrelated images to present a feeling of
balance, an element missing in urban life. Layering brings in the
concept of time. Like an archeologist who excavates antique ruins, he
digs in the sculptural background to reveal what is not instantly
evident; to discover a new headline that may be closer to the real story
about what has happened. Images of war, neckties, a cell phone perhaps
used to detonate a bomb, Michael Jackson, a veiled Moslem woman, well
dressed models diving out of windows, an eye that sees death by fire, a
mouth that cannot speak, an ear that does not hear stand side by side in
this exhibition to give glimpses of people frozen from fear or in the
process of making wrong decisions due to panic.
In Onurmen’s
opinion, panic is a contemporary illness. To describe this problem he
refers to the images from newspaper articles, television programs, and
advertisement billboards, that profusely and consecutively flow through
all levels of our lives. Such a bombardment functions to blur our
perception of reality. Images emerge and disappear as they replace one
another. True becomes false and fake substitutes for real. As the
important and mundane interweave, one day’s reality turns into the next
day’s lie. In an environment where reality and fiction appear to be the
same, everything becomes suspicious and generates fear that manifests
itself as panic. Having no control over this situation and living in
stressful, unorganized, unplanned cities ruled by traffic and unhealthy
living conditions, people feel panic due to fears about the future,
fears about the environment, fears about flying in airplanes, fears
about entering gigantic skyscrapers, fears about going on holidays,
fears about eating, fears about unemployment, fears about getting fat,
fears about investing their money, fears about sex, fears about death,
fears about failure. As they develop unhealthy human relationships, feel
pressure to consume, desire to possess everything, obsess about their
careers, lack security, become lonely, and loose their identity, panic
increases. Inevitably, panic dictates the actions of urban people who
live in a world that vibrates with news flashes about wars, epidemics,
and natural disasters.
It will be exciting to see the direction
his new work will take in the “Istanbul Next Wave” exhibition scheduled
to open on November 11, 2009, at Akademie der Kunste, Hanseatenweg,
Berlin.
Nancy Atakan, Istanbul 2009
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