Rediscovering the already existent
Written by Selin Aydinol | June 2019
Selin Aydınol is an artist from Istanbul, Turkey. Throughout her life, she moved many times, changing her home fourteen times. How she ended up in Antwerp however, was a coincidence. She knew that she wanted to live somewhere other than Istanbul, but didn’t know that it was here. Her now husband decided that for her by being Belgian. So, Selin just followed. After living in Antwerp for several years, having the high hopes that any non-european has, she was deeply disappointed and depressed. All she wanted to do was to ignore all of the problems here and leave as soon as possible. Find a new, better place to be finally happy. She didn’t want to waste time on integrating again so instead, she started researching about other countries and cities, and asked her friends about how life is where they live. After a long and difficult thought process, she suddenly realized: everywhere is the same. There are good people and bad people everywhere. Good and bad values, you can find them in every city. It’s the people you know and spend time with which makes this world livable. It’s better to stay and discover these good values, rather than trying to find a better place with no problems. If where you are has a problem, try to solve it. Make where you live a better one for those who cannot leave. This realization of life was one of the influences for these works.
Selin started this project by the influence of Bloomsbury artist, Vanessa Bell. Bell’s Virginia Woolf portrait series aroused the interest in the formal values of a painting. From then on, she looked at paintings which leaned more on shapes and its colour. She painted the same painting of Bell’s several times to understand why a certain composition intrigued her. However, with her own paintings she wanted to have a different starting point. The images are not from a model and don’t really have a conscious meaning. She paints from imagination because she believes that her mind needs space if it wants to tell her something. Selin more wants to focus on the technique she uses and the decisions she makes about colours and materials. So while her mind gets to decide the image, she can lean on the physical engagements of creating a painting, which she enjoys the most. She drew an image that she believed was a good start. Oil on canvas, she tried to figure out the image as a painting. She also wanted to discover what the intriguing point of her work can be. It had to be honest and have a satisfying result otherwise it would be too boring. Her first attempt was a disaster. Not at all what she wanted to see. This pushed her to move onto the next image. She kept on drawing and translating them into paintings. Trying to figure out the relationship between canvas and oil paint together with the shapes and colours. At some point, she wanted to make a painting that would be a continuation of the first one. Enlarging the space of the first drawing that she liked a lot but had abandoned before. Again she tried oil on canvas, but neither shapes nor the technique were satisfying. Around these times Selin was checking works of Gary Hume. Delighted by the settled paint on aluminum with dominant shapes. It was then that she decided to make great changes.
She wanted to try painting on wood with lacquer. It was her first time using lacquer so the experience of it was very thrilling. Coincidentally, the time when she made radical changes of materials, she also recognized the connection between her work and life. Instead of leaving the first image she made which was full of problems, she decided to stick to it. She wanted to evaluate the existent image and rediscover it by painting it in pieces. She fragmented the drawing, first into four pieces, then into sixteen pieces. This created a random composition every time for each piece. It was not in her control, which she respected and also accepted as a challenge. Not making any changes to the lines or shapes but only intervening by deciding the colours and textures. Creating pieces powerful and beautiful enough to hang alone on a wall. Trying to show their potential became a fun study that she enjoyed doing. Selin values the impact that basic shapes and textures can have. She cares more about the image being lookable than trying to define it or write a story about it. That’s actually what she likes about art. Any work can mean many different things for each and everyone. So why limit it by defining it?