.artSümer, is proud to host Merve Çanakçı’s second solo show “that mood” between 4 October – 10 November 2012. Her latest works resides within the world of routine household chores where boredom, concentration and getting carried away are all woven together. She questions the plausibility of a different type of universe through staged sketches which are centered on the moments accidents occur. Çanakçı builds ‘that mood’ of daydreaming while carrying out household chores and with every dream finding oneself within a different emotional state where the subject pauses for respite.
The cover of the invitation, “spirit”, consists of the portrait of the same figure experimentally and repeatedly appearing superimposed upon the form of a husky as if it is trying to praise this feeling of liberation.
In the installation “knit line” the visual construct has been embedded with great care onto the faults, spots and manufacturing defects of everyday fabrics. These picturesque compositions, which are as imaginary as they are realistic, reveal Çanakçı’s relationship with surfaces: Calling possible fantasies to appear through the specific rhythm of the moments accidents occur. This artistic thread brings together the performative side of daily household chores with goods that are not only daily things but also have no financial worth, are not sold, things with manufacturing defects.
The largest piece in the exhibition “unconnected” is an acrylic painting on bleached denim of an electricity pole that has split from a high voltage power line. This huge construct with bird nests actually invites us to experiment a moment of alienation.
Applied onto a piece of fabric with a pattern of a spider’s web on it “..where she exits” is an example of the artistic approach which in a way observes and documents the criminology of the climate within the home for us to contemplate. It is within such paintings that we see a consolidation of the repetition of tedious household chores for which we no longer remember the reason and from which we are unable to refrain, and a curiosity about the dynamics of losing oneself while tidying up. It exists to interpret the boundaries of the house and the the woman subject’s dialogue with untouchable, unreachable and unknown realms.
The “trace” installation of the soleplates of the iron points a reference to a different life experience. They mirror our stories as we engross ourselves into the surfaces.
These scratched, blackened surfaces that have lost their luster, are concerned with the idea of change actually being a long way from the idea of immediacy; they emphasise the fact that change is a slow and perturbed process.
We are able to better understand her artistic intentions when an untitled painting of an oven which implicates a direct action but alludes to geometrical interventions on abstract planes finds itself in proximity to paintings like “cut” that ends up as a crime scene investigation on a romantic piece of fabric. These majestic, swaying fabric surfaces that do not fit into norms seem somehow familiar; they show us that what we call home is nothing more than a figment of our imagination. These works, which turn the image into reflections of the psychological state of the person doing the housework, corresponds to objects from the depictions of our imagination, almost jumping out at us when we close our eyes.
While Merve Çanakçı paints mood-defining pictures of different emotional themes such as loneliness or closeness onto defected fabrics, she leaves us to face the many dilemmas inherent in the modern world’s definition of private space.
