art

Working within a figurative painting practice, Ayşenur Köksal explores the question of identity through the concept of gender. She graduated from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University.

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In seeking to understand the perception of women in society, the artist at times plays with it, and beyond that, attempts to dismantle and reconstruct it. She argues that awareness of the external world begins with understanding woman as the creative force. In keeping with her deconstructive approach, Köksal's treatment of the figure is shaped by oppositions. The individual who constitutes society is, at the same time, its opposite. Within all networks of relationships, the woman stands either with her individuality or entirely alone, confronting the cool colors used to depict other people and the surrounding space with the warm colors she embodies. In Köksal's paintings, color is as powerful an element as drawing.

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In constructing her narrative, the artist neither idealizes the fully realized figure nor leaves it unchanged. Instead, under the influence of her psychological and sociological analyses, she aestheticizes and distorts it. The figure exists not only through its physical presence, but also through the roles it assumes and its points of rupture. Within the relationship between figure and space, deformation becomes a means of emphasizing female identity. By deconstructing what is accepted as correct in order to reveal its internal contradictions, the artist attempts a multiple reading of both the individual and society. This mode of inquiry neither excludes the "other" nor takes the side of the majority. In creating this contemporary reconstruction of womanhood, Köksal chooses to remain simply an observer and narrator, detached from the perspective of her own gender.

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Ayşenur Köksal's exhibition "Hot & Cold" will be on view at Gala Gallery from 23 March to 6 April 2023.