Help Me Mondrian!

During my obsession with the uprise of Modern Architecture during the early 20th century I was curious to find Mondrian Composition No. II as the pivotal pieces of Neoplasticism. The optimization of meaning by simplfying a painting to primary colors, horizontal and vertical lines was the ultimate challenge for me.

The balance of concept with simplicity of altitude alludes to Mondrian’s alignment in Composition No. II. The three dimensional ink piece conveys the appealing attributes of “vices”, and the strength of black which consumes the viewer as does vices when they are in the setting of a social acceptance form.

Rembrandt and Bacon

This piece was inspired by Bacon’s triptych and his quote, “It’s always hopeless to talk about painting- one never does anything but talk around it.” That is exactly what I wanted the viewers to do: talk around the painting. Single-handedly experience the transformation of the body from one sin of life to the other as if one is in Dante’s Purgatory. I have tried to echo the rhythm of Rembrandt’s brushstrokes to convey the vanity and jagged bits of life with the rough and quick lines.

Pathos

This painting was done in a mere moment of fury and despise at the women who are completely oblivious to the stomach of truth. These are the women I fear the most and at this instant being surrounded by these types of women for the past four hours I locked myself in the toilet and painted this piece. This painting dwells in the floor of my toilet and is  hidden beneath a rug, and besides my mother, not a single soul has seen it. 

The Body

The Fortuneteller

This piece is inspired by fortunetellers and their intrinsic mysticism. I have always been covertly afraid of going to fortunetellers, although I proclaim the folly of being able to “see” the future. The style is inspired by Caravaggio and his adept technique in using light.

Misplacement

I was inspired by Richard Meier’s sinuous forms and narrow vertical windows in Church 2000, Rome, however this structure is not a church but a modern congregation dwelling for different religions. I was inspired by pending paradigm shift in our upcoming decades where religion will be universal and less condemning.

Open

This structure is a representation of the parabolic carvings below windowsills of Ottoman style houses and the transparency of Phillip Johnson’s Glass House. I though of it as a pavilion that exhibits people. A person standing on the semi-circle like cantilever is vulnerable and on display for the people on the other cantilever as is a person standing on the other side.

Diminishing Moments

 This model conveys the diminishing moments the 21^st century presents to the individual. We are bound to experience moments in a shorter span, thus are trying to unfold the roots of Carpe Diem. Being in the presence of this structure, a person will experience the diminishing space as they go from the right building to the very left. The mass is hanging in mid-air as the structure itself is hanging in a timeless place in architecture where there are no such constructed forms that are being built.

Counting Steps

I have this quirk, which has fortunately turned itself into an artwork, of counting steps. When I was young I thought there was something wrong with me because I could not stop counting, but as years past by I came to terms with this habit and learned to embrace this obsession.

Burn After Reading

These women are models that I stumbled upon in an arbitrary manner. They represent the picture-perfect part of the food chain. Yet they are nothing but framed inaccuracies of life; thus, with time these women, unfoil and inadvertently crack.

The Mis-Identity of Men

 This piece was inspired by Gould’s Mismeasure of Man. When placed in different settings we become different people, and eventually lose our essence. An essence which William Butler Yeats describes in his poem The Song of Wandering Aengus. This artwork conveys the different measures humans shape into and the irrationality of this endeavor. 

  

The Mismeasure of Man

This project was inspired by Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man. The book consists of white men in the 18th century disparaging black men and women according to arbitrary measurements. So I placed this man on top of tape measures and elongated the skull part of him in order to convey the hollowness of men who discriminated and still discriminate today.

The Lens

During my visit to Istanbul, while I was roaming around I stumbled upon a woman, who was wearing a Hijab, taking a photo of some view she found worthy to be recorded. She was looking through a lens to see the world as people who look at her look at a lens to see her. She may be a conservationist and an anti-liberal but in the case that she is not, we have placed ourselves before a lens, which places a prejudice within it. In my painting of Istanbul I wanted to convey the role of the lens that we sometimes place when viewing everything that is surrounding us. The camera is taking a photo of the blank spot; thus the beholder of the camera is recording everything but the grandeur of a beautiful city as Istanbul.

Rooster and Eye

This piece is about the role of the man and woman in social norms. It was inspired by the doctrines people, especially women of upper class had to obey and the propriety, which became their slave drivers in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. While the women are generically suppressed the men take the spotlight. In this artwork I placed an eye in the woman’s and rooster in the man’s face. The woman, although evidence to the contrary, is the window to the soul of society whereas the man is the oblivious rooster who does not do so much as hatch an egg but only fertilizes it.

Self-Portrait

"If you can talk about it, why paint it?" 

                                     Francis Bacon

Why Architecture?

I visit Istanbul often, and whenever I need space I duck into the insides of the Hagia Sofia with such frequency that the guardian recognizes and greets me. Then, after greeting the mosque myself, I pass through the third column on the right and take my usual place. Looking closely, I see figures carved into the mosaics there, figures that Mimar Sinan, out of courtesy, did not scrape off when the Greek Basilica was being transformed into a mosque. He kept the mosaics created by artists of the past in his renewal of the structure because he knew that history would bridge his perception and the culture of Turks. His vision was to mold the past into the present.

Great architecture is not just the meticulous flow of space and harmony of light, but the ability to frame a vision. It is the struggle between the duality of culture and utility as my life has been, and the inept sagacity to form an indelible perception. I know that for the rest of my life I want to create visions.

I live with a passion to expand perceptions of the past into the present, and create buildings of modernistic and historical appeal. As if Mies Van der Roche met Mimar Sinan and decided to build a structure, or Richard Meier met with Sedad Hakkı Eldem, and by doing so opened up a new peep hole for the 21st century’s architectural vision. I want to be the architect to form this vision, to be able to speak within the past and the present.

Musicians hear music, writers acquire a pen, painters become their paintings and I have a bent for creating visions. That is precisely why I want to become an architect.