Merve Denizci, Downhill, oil on canvas, drywall, plywood, cushions, painting and carving on wood, on 400x270cm vertical space, 2023
Instead of the niches used in the plasterboard wall for Stray Eye I, Merve Denizci embarks on a large wall play that will create a greater physical effect on the viewer and change the perception of the space: she bends a three and a half meter wall from floor to ceiling. The work, a series of fragmentary works he calls "Downhill", takes its name from the location of I.M.Ç. between the two hills leading to the complex from Süleymaniye and Zeyrek.
Detail: 120x155 sitting niche with cushion, 120x120cm oil on canvas, 30x21 cm oil on plywood, 350x270 drywall.
On the canvas, there is an oil painting made from a photograph of the place that was accidentally placed on a reflective material on the floor at the end of last year's exhibition (Stray Eye l.) Although the painting looks quite abstract, there is a water-colored cushion with its wavy structure. Having been interested in the physicality of the art object for some time, the artist began to ask questions about the tactile relationship that the viewer would establish and perhaps the function that this would inevitably bring.
Merve Denizci, Untitled, oil on plywood, 30x21 cm, 2023
Placed to the right of the trapezoidal wall, the painting is placed at ninety degrees to the floor, rather than embedded in it parallel to the angled wall. Composed of vertical forms, the painting conveys the tension between the image and the abstract that permeated modernist art. Both the way it is placed and its image, which stands between illusion and abstraction, reveal the object-ness of the painting.
The work continues on the other plaster wall to the right of the trapezoid wall. This time embedded in a flat wall, the work, created with the technique of painting and engraving on wood, carries the same tension, creating a sense of solidity despite the material being clearly shown. Presenting a section of the ancient column, the work's relief-like structure is not perceived when viewed directly from the opposite side, while its three-dimensional surface is perceived when viewed from a certain angle from the right or left. Placed inside the wall with zero edges and referencing an ancient object, I.M.Ç. points to the layered structure of Istanbul and the ruins around it.
Merve Denizci, untitled, scraping technique and oil painting on walnut wood, 32x24 cm, 2023