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My atelier is at Maltepe, a narrow long building with three stories. The upper story is an area which I use for exhibiting my finished works, it has a terrace also; in the middle floor also there are my finished works and it is a place where I work for the improvement of my projects; the entrance floor is the place where I usually work, and all my tools and materials are there.
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My art is about people. Particularly those who have to escape because of being pushed out of society or being subjected to prosecution. Those who have to quit their motherlands, their homes... I tell the stories of people who struggle to survive or just to be happy. One motive that drives me to work on such a theme is that it reflects part of my life. I, too, have been living away from 'home' since the end of the 80's and that compelled me to think that the life was full of indefinite possibilities and the past was there to be remembered. My work becomes more meaningful when art meets real life. I have realized this work rising on the experiences of others and mine and collecting the documents which present clues of different lifes.
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Kezban Arca Batıbeki used some special materials to give a sandy feeling to the canvas in her latest works under the title "On the Road". By making the texture rough, and with the help of the toys, model cars, tin soldiers she has combined the two dimensional lines of painting with the three dimensional objects of the real world in one ground. She has gained a "painted" feeling touch to the sandy surfaces that give the effect of a desert, even to the unpainted material.
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Photo: Sıtkı Kösemen |
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My work is a criticism of modernity. Or a hermeneutic reading. Language and history are problematical. "In fact the point where a blow needs to be struck is, according to Benjamin, the approach to history which is summed up in the sentence 'the truth cannot escape us' uttered by historicity. For the past is not a dead heritage, it is lightning at the moment of danger, 'a fleeting image.' And the historian, a prophet 'with his head turned backwards,' is in actuality a 'maker of images' who, in a quotation cited by Benjamin from Hofmannstahl, reads 'what has never been written.' The images which are remembered-and which have a mythical and utopian content-are those with an aura, and they include the self-image of he or she who remembers. (For this reason, memory is definitely not an instrument, but if anything a medium.) That is, remembering-as in Proust-is the emergence 'of what has not been said in words."
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Photo: Burçin Çakar
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What we lived in Istanbul during many years, has been interpreted by some artists directly and by some others indirectly. I am very attached to Sultanahmet Square. On Sundays I used to watch the square with enthusiasm and admiration. If I am to make a painting of Istanbul, this square should be painted, I thought in my inner self. Then the obelisk came in. Some civilisations have placed the obelisk as if they would like to point out their eras and cultures. 'Why shouldn't I have a obelisk for myself on this world?' I said to myself and the adventure started.
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Photo: Yelda Baler |
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"For me, observing the mankind is the primary struggle... Observing the mankind, and a message you can receive from there, turning the sign you receive into another sign. And of course this requires curiousity, this is a kind of hunt... Following, putting yourself forward, to get closer, physical and mental contact... You open up your heart, you open up what you think, you go and touch, or at least follow something faraway... You look something hits you... Now all this depends upon taking all these seriously."
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