Ebru Uygun
BY Dorothea Strauss
Over the past ten years or so, Ebru Uygun, born in 1974 in Istanbul, has developed a complex way of handling the medium of painting, which constitutes a link between the act of painting on canvas, a deconstruction thereof, and a subsequent synthesis: Uygun tears several previously painted canvases into strips, a process which is physically quite strenuous, and collages these strips in a new sequence on another canvas. In turn, this canvas is mounted very traditionally on a stretcher frame. The process of fragmentation and synthesis gives rise to abstract constellations, the components of which hint at a possible, former whole, which nevertheless remains intangible. Thus, the non-representational fragments of forms and lines, which sometimes almost seem calligraphic, generate a kind of picture puzzle which, however, defies deciphering and leaves open the question of whether one of the paintings used was representational before its deconstruction.
Ebru Uygun causes a new image to emerge, in which everything that essentially constitutes painting is put under scrutiny: the image ground, the colors, the forms and the image space which painting can thus create – be it representational, abstract or concrete. Whoever deconstructs, scrutinizes what exists, and distances themselves. In some cases, more can be learned from this distance. Whoever deconstructs does not destroy, but wants to take a closer look at the individual elements and to critically scrutinize their effects. This philosophical process, this attitude, comes into its own in Uygun’s works: tearing the canvases into strips initially gives rise to intermediate spaces, voids. Only in the next step, does Uygun remove these intermediate spaces again, by assembling the strips – sometimes even overlapping them. Thus, Uygun’s deconstructive process is also one which ultimately invokes a very specific cohesion, namely a fragmented cohesion. In her works, unity reveals itself as a holding-together of the different. Therefore, it is also not surprising when the artist mentions in conversation that over the past years she has frequently occupied herself with various philosophical, literary texts, dating back to the Middle Ages: Uygun is interested in the forces of attraction between order and chaos. This is also one reason why her works frequently encompass an impression of a certain disfigurement.
In past years, it was like a quiet, unspectacular and never dramatically enacted form of damage: the threads of the canvas material provide gentle evidence of the intrinsically violent act of tearing. Like linear structures, they adhere to the surface or hang down loosely, also lending the paintings a dimension reminiscent of handicraft when observed up close, but handicraft in which not everything has transpired quite correctly. This also generates subtle moments of irritation and incompleteness.
Uygun has sometimes applied the strips in wave shapes, sometimes in vertical and horizontal lines, and also in dynamically contorted structures, developing an increasingly unconventional language of forms. To an ever-greater extent (as demonstrated by the works from the last one-and- a-half years in particular) she seeks a form that allows her to reduce more, but also to become more vehement. Along this route, for instance, Ebru Uygun has experimented with marble blocks and engraved words or sentences, but then shelved this possible new group of works for the time being, because she wanted to further intensify her inquiries into painting and into the image as such: with regard to both the degree of disfigurement and her previously very colorful palette, Uygun’s technique has changed radically in recent months. Already in the past, she always used transparent paste for the collaging, although the initial canvases were still mostly painted with traditional paint.
Today, Uygun not only dispenses with the diversity of her colors, now exclusively using shades of white and black, but she also dispenses with paint as a painting material and instead only uses colored paste. The latest, mostly horizontally collaged strip structures have thus become considerably more sculptural. The slightly shiny distemper peels off in various places, markedly bulges forward and generates intense distortions. Uygun’s images have thus obtained a corporeality which indeed has an almost unsettling effect. At the same time, they appear precise and highly focused: the horizontal linear structures are reminiscent of texts –fragmentary texts.
BY Dorothea Strauss
Over the past ten years or so, Ebru Uygun, born in 1974 in Istanbul, has developed a complex way of handling the medium of painting, which constitutes a link between the act of painting on canvas, a deconstruction thereof, and a subsequent synthesis: Uygun tears several previously painted canvases into strips, a process which is physically quite strenuous, and collages these strips in a new sequence on another canvas. In turn, this canvas is mounted very traditionally on a stretcher frame. The process of fragmentation and synthesis gives rise to abstract constellations, the components of which hint at a possible, former whole, which nevertheless remains intangible. Thus, the non-representational fragments of forms and lines, which sometimes almost seem calligraphic, generate a kind of picture puzzle which, however, defies deciphering and leaves open the question of whether one of the paintings used was representational before its deconstruction.
Ebru Uygun causes a new image to emerge, in which everything that essentially constitutes painting is put under scrutiny: the image ground, the colors, the forms and the image space which painting can thus create – be it representational, abstract or concrete. Whoever deconstructs, scrutinizes what exists, and distances themselves. In some cases, more can be learned from this distance. Whoever deconstructs does not destroy, but wants to take a closer look at the individual elements and to critically scrutinize their effects. This philosophical process, this attitude, comes into its own in Uygun’s works: tearing the canvases into strips initially gives rise to intermediate spaces, voids. Only in the next step, does Uygun remove these intermediate spaces again, by assembling the strips – sometimes even overlapping them. Thus, Uygun’s deconstructive process is also one which ultimately invokes a very specific cohesion, namely a fragmented cohesion. In her works, unity reveals itself as a holding-together of the different. Therefore, it is also not surprising when the artist mentions in conversation that over the past years she has frequently occupied herself with various philosophical, literary texts, dating back to the Middle Ages: Uygun is interested in the forces of attraction between order and chaos. This is also one reason why her works frequently encompass an impression of a certain disfigurement.
In past years, it was like a quiet, unspectacular and never dramatically enacted form of damage: the threads of the canvas material provide gentle evidence of the intrinsically violent act of tearing. Like linear structures, they adhere to the surface or hang down loosely, also lending the paintings a dimension reminiscent of handicraft when observed up close, but handicraft in which not everything has transpired quite correctly. This also generates subtle moments of irritation and incompleteness.
Uygun has sometimes applied the strips in wave shapes, sometimes in vertical and horizontal lines, and also in dynamically contorted structures, developing an increasingly unconventional language of forms. To an ever-greater extent (as demonstrated by the works from the last one-and- a-half years in particular) she seeks a form that allows her to reduce more, but also to become more vehement. Along this route, for instance, Ebru Uygun has experimented with marble blocks and engraved words or sentences, but then shelved this possible new group of works for the time being, because she wanted to further intensify her inquiries into painting and into the image as such: with regard to both the degree of disfigurement and her previously very colorful palette, Uygun’s technique has changed radically in recent months. Already in the past, she always used transparent paste for the collaging, although the initial canvases were still mostly painted with traditional paint.
Today, Uygun not only dispenses with the diversity of her colors, now exclusively using shades of white and black, but she also dispenses with paint as a painting material and instead only uses colored paste. The latest, mostly horizontally collaged strip structures have thus become considerably more sculptural. The slightly shiny distemper peels off in various places, markedly bulges forward and generates intense distortions. Uygun’s images have thus obtained a corporeality which indeed has an almost unsettling effect. At the same time, they appear precise and highly focused: the horizontal linear structures are reminiscent of texts –fragmentary texts.