Page 112 - Famous

NURETTIN ERKAN

Lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey
w w w.nuret tinerkan.com

Despite all the first-impression meaning resolutions and formal references “Who was I? Was it today’s bewildered me? Or yesterday’s? Some forgotten
that one gets from them, I think that the amorphous body images seem- tomorrow’s? Some unforeseeable one? Or yet another that is observing them
ingly forever pregnant with genesis and birth that appear in Nurettin Erkan’s all in a mirror?” These bodies, which sometimes become lost in a confusion of
paintings in actual fact point to quite a few imaginary conceptual voids paint and sometimes stand out individually as some sexless image, assume
that go beyond themselves. Now swaying in a void, now emerging three- different roles. Multiplying the question marks, they appear to be emphasiz-
dimensionally from the surface as if they were going to leap upon us, these ing what is fundamental whereas in fact they are the immediate cause of our
imaginary bodies, which are reminiscent of a state of mobilization against disentanglement and distancing.
every sort of ontology that rejects abstract intelligence, take us back to the This stream of associations, which some readers might perceive as a kind
primary states of thinking and to a pictorial act that wants to turn into its of postmodernist mental gymnastics, could be regarded as a meaningless
counterpart. These skinless bodies, whose carcasses are clumped together strategy for analysis. I must myself make it clear that I don’t want to see
in terms of line and paint and which acknowledge prospects for “other” states Nurettin Erkan’s paintings engulfed by conceptual waves. Nevertheless one
that are external to themselves, provoke the different states of reality and perceives such a degree of ossification between formal language and sug-
spirit that can emerge in perception. These anonymous bodies, constantly gested atmosphere on the one hand and sociocultural concepts and discourse
moving in order to exist, encroach upon one another in a way that not only on the other that it does not seem to be very wise to ignore one point while
emphasizes the notion of “human” contact but also activates a grand chain analyzing another. For this reason I am going to try and point out the rationale
of existence of which touching is the cause. And it is precisely at this point for the appearance of these bodies as a first step and then indicate the levels
that there is manifested a Borges-like autobiographical question-one aspect of discourse with which they coincide and which they trigger-even if that was
of which extends as far as ourselves-pertaining to these heroes concerning not the original intention.
whose roles and identities we cannot advance even a single suggestion: The process of being and anonymization by Levent Çalıkoˇglu

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