Seldem Oskay
Sensin Bensin
27.10. - 27.11.2022
SENSIN BENSIN
‘Sensin Bensin, was first a game my sister and I had made up and played as children.
In our search for our identities, the game was based on showing our visual similarities to one another, without asking and without fault.
Take two salt shakers on a table as an example. With only a slight difference, we could find the distinguishing feature that make it “me” or “her”.
Years later, I would continue to use the same method in my inner world, examining the concepts of ‘me’ and ‘you’.
In fact, all ‘I’s and ‘you’s existed within us, waiting for us to discover and approve them.
Every self-induced characterization we approved took its place in us as a melody, sometimes as a color or even a posture. When I stopped looking for these manifestations in others, I came to the realisation that all “you”s and “me”s were in fact intertwined.
There was a story I wanted to tell. I relied on a more silent visuality rather than an overt discourse. I tried to understand the whole, the general, by starting from myself.
Experiencing the duality of being both one and many within ourselves and confronting the fact that the only person we could trust in life was ourselves as soon as we were born were the messages that I wanted to put across in my paintings.
Under the influence of my inner world, my creative process progressed in a manner in which I would make sulk and then make peace at my materials, before exclaiming “this is it!”.
I associated the imagery of a fertile woman and her state of nudity with the condition of being human, one that is stripped of our identities. The breasts are a representation of the life-giving force, the concepts of hunger and satiety, and the feeling of being ‘enough’.
Scaly skin, synonymous with keeping up, emphasizes the state of being a woman who does not drown in water, whose lungs do not burn in the air, and who is strong and can survive in all conditions. The state of being bounded by hands and feet are to give the feeling of turning inward and being at peace with ourselves.
In short, I can say that my paintings are my silent books. There is a story I want to tell, but I cannot tell it to everyone. Only those who are sincerely curious can enter through that door.
