Following her exhibitions “I Am Unaware”(2008), “Parallel Lands”(2009) and “Therefore”(2010), in her recent exhibition “Besides”(2011), Çınar Eslek addresses two reciprocal and contrasting events; reproduction and decay.

While in her photographs and paintings partaking in her exhibition “I Am Unaware” artist Çınar Eslek takes inspiration from her own body, in “Parallel Lands” Eslek contemplates further on concepts such as body and space. Drawing the viewer to ponder on the idea of ‘non-places’ in her exhibition “Therefore” with her works based mainly on space, Eslek’s  next exhibition “Besides” is a follow-up, expanding upon these aspirations. To understand this, one should take into account the leaflet of the exhibition “Therefore”. According to Marc Augé “If places are defined by their relationships to history and identity, a place that has no ties to these peripheral components becomes a ‘non-place’”. Augé exemplifies this definition by talking about the transient and temporal dynamics airports contain; where travellers do not give away much of their identities or personal lives, and merely momentary encounters take place. Eslek’s photographs which we come across in her exhibition “Therefore” capture the essence of Augé’s ‘non-places’.  In her photograph of a bed with the indent of someone who has just gotten up, Eslek conjures the image of a place where, just as in Augé’s description, identities and lives do not leave an impression and transiency takes hold of the space. Even as Eslek’s photographs evoke the presence of those who remain in the background -as is with women- and bears the indications of the private and the traces of the body, they still refrain from giving any hints as to any identity.

Eslek’s works in this exhibition, just as in her previous one, refuse to conjure an identification for the places or the objects she puts forward. Once more the viewer is provoked to recall Michel Foucault’s notions considering space and time. According to Foucault’s suggestions, time is a conception evolving around productivity, prosperity, life and dialectics. Space, on the other hand, is being conceived as dead, stationary, constant and not containing any dialectics. In Eslek’s paintings, photographs and video works, this contrast is being reflected upon. While Eslek’s paintings become a representation of time, her photographs represent space and her video work “Ne Gibi” stands as a representation for the interplay- spacetime.

In her paintings displayed in the exhibition, Eslek tackles the concept of reproduction. This theme is manifested through images of eggs and figures of infants. The strip of red stretching across the bottom of an egg, perhaps being a navel cord, conjures the conception of time within the painting. In another painting we come across two eggs stuck to each other on the brink of cracking. The incident of cracking here refers to life, and furthermore to time. The figures of babies also refer to time and in a way are another presentation of the eggs fully cracked. Eslek’s infant figures draw attention by their “uncanny” (unheimlich) qualities. Even though at first they seem to be ordinary infant portraits, they also carry a disturbing attribute to them.  As Freud puts it forward, the concept of the “uncanny” applies to that which is both very familiar, yet distant and unfamiliar simultaneously. Eslek’s figures, being half grown, summon an image that we are closely acquainted with, yet disturb us concurrently. The figures, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs, capture our attention with expressions varying from being sarcastic to being completely vacant. Similar to the paintings of eggs, a tint of red appearing time to time in the hands, the clothing or the lips of the figures add a notion of time to the composition. In Foucault’s words, the notion of time that appears to us as life and as a dialectic…

While Eslek’s egg and infant figures put forward time in terms of life and dialectics, her photography works evolve around the dead, stationary and non dialectic disposition of space. In her photographs where the process of decay is revealed, Eslek once again abstains to provide any hints; no trace as to the manner or identity of neither the places nor the components that construct these places are given. In the photographs where Eslek lays bare the transformation of a potato the concept of the very process of decay itself is being unmasked. It is a state of “formation” that is being acknowledged and recorded. Here too the documentation gives no hints as to what the subject is. While in her paintings Eslek represents a transition from a state of an egg onto a state of life, in her photography the transition from life to death is displayed. The viewer is shown a dialectic here.

Ultimately, Eslek makes use of forms of eggs and infants in her paintings and a decaying potato in her photography to reflect upon “transformation” and “formation”. The parallels within the forms of the egg and the potato contribute further to the dialectic view Eslek employs.  “Transformation” and “formation” also put forward the issue of time. Time is a concept packed with symbolic meaning and Çınar Eslek’s current exhibition can be tied back to her previous exhibition “Therefore” with the thread of “being a woman” as a connecting symbol. Time, as a starting point, but also as a resolution point, interacts with space and puts forth a chain of narrations within it.  Eslek who has contemplated on topics such as the body, gender and identity in her previous exhibitions now approaches these themes within the context of spacetime.

Burcu PELVANOĞLU