KATABASIS - XVIII Painting

Human is in the center of my painting. This human is first of all a notion. This human notion is not something that can be reduced to the body. Therefore, I have never aimed at painting on the covering-physical body. I do figurative painting because of the feeling that figure or the body is the best way that reaches to the inner self of human. I have chosen the body only as an object that goes through human, and by way of using his body I want to reach his center. This is not only a choice but also my own reality that I intimately reflect. This is a pictorial work almost like an excavation about the historical memory, nature of human, and his struggle to exist. I live in hunger for a form of human existence reflected on the body which I have adorned with metaphoric symbols of my own, from a historical perspective up until our present day. Thus, I agree with the existentialist point of view which says, “the body, as a state of this world, cannot be reduced to an objective structure imposed upon it internally or externally”. nurettin erkan