What the Tongue Cannot Say M-25
DEVABİL KARA CONTINUES TO TRACE THE PAST
Devabil Kara, who has become one of the significant names in our contemporary art through works produced within a multi-faceted discipline and by utilizing various techniques since the early nineties, began to give concrete meaning to her interest in archaeology in her very first series. Within the framework of this interest, Kara has systematically produced works that never view archaeological science or the findings uncovered through its methods with the unquestioning “nostalgic” and “emotional” gaze of modern individuals, nor has she assigned them meanings that deviate from their reality.
For her, sensing that fossilized beings or artifacts that have remained under layers of soil for thousands of years are still, in a sense, breathing meters below the ground is a step toward feeling their lived experiences and functions. She evaluates ancient works and entities alongside the “space” they occupied within the course of life, coupled with a specific function. She never considers them in isolation or within constructed, artificial spaces. In Devabil Kara’s perspective, it is important to excitedly rediscover these findings centuries later, along with the life lived upon them, the spaces they inhabited at the time they were recreated, and the regions to which they belonged in various geographies.
The artist traces the past through her production. In her own words, she is in pursuit of “creating images that complete the gap between the past and the future.”
The perception of space and painting as a whole is vital in Devabil Kara’s art. She even applied works to the walls of the former prison that hosted her exhibition titled “What the Tongue Cannot Say” at the Atik Valide Complex in Üsküdar, integrating the memory created by lived experience with the spatial arrangement.
She produced the paintings for her new exhibition, which should be seen as a continuation of the “What the Tongue Cannot Say” exhibition, in three different spaces that she transformed into studios over time. For the artist, working by sensing the atmosphere within a space emerges as a very important concept.
The warehouse named “M25,” which also gives the exhibition its name, is a workspace located meters underground. It would not be wrong to say that the artist found the environment she was looking for in this space. The nature of this environment, which “permeates” the produced works, can be observed in her paintings as a harmonious image both in terms of subject matter and form.
Devabil Kara uses a wide variety of materials in her paintings. She utilizes natural materials such as cellulose and beeswax while creating the forms on the painting surface. The visual effect created by the use of these materials on the canvas is also appropriate for the dimension of the ideas she wishes to convey. In the background of the paintings, the textural effect of the canvas layer—which she almost melts into the body of the painting by utilizing dense materials over areas where she intensely applies warm and cold colors with free brushstrokes—creates a visual serenity with its monochrome and simple appearance, alongside the dynamism and color of the background structure within the composition. This formation also makes a visual reference to the theme of earth layers, which the artist has placed at the center of her research.
In this series, we see the geometric areas she defined with lines on the canvas surface in some of her older paintings in a different dimension within intertwined colorful and monochrome textural surfaces. In these paintings, the designated areas transform into a world of their own.
In her paintings created using cellulose and beeswax, simplicity draws our attention in the second layer she adds to the body of the work, despite the intense color and formal application of the background.
We see the concepts of “emptiness” and “fullness,” which she addresses in almost all of her paintings, much more emphatically in the application dimension of these works.
Devabil Kara has used the chair image—through which she questioned concepts such as power and order in her previous paintings—in many works of this series within the composition. The chair image is treated like a relief overflowing from the canvas surface through the materials and construction used, as if it were moving within a void. The same application applies to the self-portrait silhouettes and rhinoceros figures that the artist includes in the compositions of some of her paintings.
In some works within the series, in addition to paint applications obtained entirely from natural materials, she has also included the branches and leaves of a “real” plant within these applied layers. These layers and the natural paint application covering the real plant parts, accompanied by the idea of looking at fossilized beings and various concepts from behind the veil of time, suggest the scientific “codes” that always exist within them and will not disappear as a result of passing time, despite their deformation.
SERKAN AZERİ
‘Düşüş’ Tuval Üzerine Akrilik 160×130 cm 2011 / ‘Falling Down’ Acrylic on Canvas
'Düşüş' Tuval Üzerine Akrilik 160x130 cm 2011 / 'Falling Down' Acrylic on Canvas
‘Ters Açı’, Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Opposite Angle’ Mixed Technique on Canvas
'Ters Açı', Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Opposite Angle' Mixed Technique on Canvas
‘Ters Açı’, Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Opposite Angle’ Mixed Technique on Canvas
'Ters Açı', Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Opposite Angle' Mixed Technique on Canvas
‘Alışıldık Manzaranın Hiçliği’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Nullity Of Accustomed Scenic’ Mixed Technique on Canvas
'Alışıldık Manzaranın Hiçliği' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Nullity Of Accustomed Scenic' Mixed Technique on Canvas
‘Duchamp M-25’, Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Duchamp M-25’ Mixed Technique on Canvas
'Duchamp M-25', Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Duchamp M-25' Mixed Technique on Canvas
Boşluğun Gizemi’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘The Mystery of the Space’, Mixed Technique on Canvas
Boşluğun Gizemi' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'The Mystery of the Space', Mixed Technique on Canvas
‘Sonsuzluk’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Infinity’ Mixed Technique on Canvas
'Sonsuzluk' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Infinity' Mixed Technique on Canvas
‘Boş Kare’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Blank Square’ Mixed Technique on Canvas<
'Boş Kare' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Blank Square' Mixed Technique on Canvas<
‘Düş Ekseninde Büst’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Bust in Veritical Axis’, Mixed Technique on Canvas
'Düş Ekseninde Büst' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Bust in Veritical Axis', Mixed Technique on Canvas
‘Bir Savaşcının Direnişi’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Resistance of a Warrior’ Mixed Technique on Canvas
'Bir Savaşcının Direnişi' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Resistance of a Warrior' Mixed Technique on Canvas
‘Saklı Görüntü’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Hidden View’ Mixed Technique on Canvas
'Saklı Görüntü' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Hidden View' Mixed Technique on Canvas
‘Saklı Düş’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Hidden Dream’ Mixed Technique on Canvas
'Saklı Düş' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Hidden Dream' Mixed Technique on Canvas
‘İzlenim’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Impression’ Mixed Techniqueon Canvas
'İzlenim' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Impression' Mixed Techniqueon Canvas
İki Alanın Ortak Beklentisi’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Associate Expectision of Two Fields’ Mixed Technique on Canvas
İki Alanın Ortak Beklentisi' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Associate Expectision of Two Fields' Mixed Technique on Canvas
Varoluşun Bedeli’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2011 / ‘Cost of Being’ Mixed Media on Canvas
Varoluşun Bedeli' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2011 / 'Cost of Being' Mixed Media on Canvas
‘Beyaz Kanıt’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 170×200 cm 2011
'Beyaz Kanıt' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 170x200 cm 2011
Kırmızı Aralık’ Mono Baskı 50×35 cm 2012
Kırmızı Aralık' Mono Baskı 50x35 cm 2012
Saklı Yer’ Kağıt Bez Üzerine Akrilik 90×70 cm 2012<
Saklı Yer' Kağıt Bez Üzerine Akrilik 90x70 cm 2012<
‘Çift Sayfa’ Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2012
'Çift Sayfa' Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2012
Düşüş’ Mono Baskı 50×35 cm 2012
Düşüş' Mono Baskı 50x35 cm 2012
‘Sınırlı Kadraj’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2012
'Sınırlı Kadraj' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2012
‘Ufuk Çizgisi’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2012
'Ufuk Çizgisi' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2012
Simetrik Alan 2′ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2012
Simetrik Alan 2' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2012
‘Karşıt Güçlerin Uyumu’ Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200×170 cm 2012<
'Karşıt Güçlerin Uyumu' Tuval Üzerine Karışık Teknik 200x170 cm 2012<
Devabil 4
Devabil 4
Devabil 7
Devabil 7
Devabil 3
Devabil 3
Devabil 9
Devabil 9
Devabil 2
Devabil 2
‘Dikaçı’ Yerleştirme Karışık Teknik 1m x 1.6 m x 25 cm 2013
'Dikaçı' Yerleştirme Karışık Teknik 1m x 1.6 m x 25 cm 2013
Devabil KARA ‘Savaşa Karşıyım’ Tuval Üzerine Akrilik Selüloz 160×140 cm 2013
Devabil KARA 'Savaşa Karşıyım' Tuval Üzerine Akrilik Selüloz 160x140 cm 2013
Dikaçı
Dikaçı
Devabil Kara ‘Kırmızı’ 160×140 cm 2013
Devabil Kara 'Kırmızı' 160x140 cm 2013
