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1/3/2012

Ebru Ozsecen

Rampa, Istanbul

Ebru Özseçen combines her experience in the fields of architecture, design, and contemporary art to explore different aspects of the psychological and sociological relationships between space and body. Her work presents a great diversity of media; ranging from urban intervention to sculpture and objects, to photography, video, film installations and drawings. The artist is concerned with the dualities of inside/outside and public/private and explores individual memory in contemporary society. Ebru Özseçen investigates the seemingly mundane to expose its magical and unseen aspects. She reveals a space in which fantasy and memory hide in plain sight.

It is impossible to disregard the gender aspect in Özseçen's work, in which she indiscriminately plays with the androgynous form—the phallus, vulva, uterus or scrotum. At times pushing the boundaries of pornographic obscenity, the artist always places erotic intensity in the foreground. On the other hand, in many of her works it is possible to see Özseçen driven by her deep-seated admiration for the tradition of artisanship. The artist is drawn to the sensual quality of the form and the beauty of a well-accomplished object. This approach invites us to interpret the artist's practice from a new perspective. Özseçen's sharp gaze on the form, and her romantic obsession with the beautiful, the pure, and the unsoiled confront us with sharp yet sensitive, violent yet graceful works that have been refined in the hands of a craftsman.

The first of Özseçen's works to be exhibited at Rampa, Balls (1997) is one of the earliest works of the artist. Balls portrays shining ball and pendants on a chandelier, which the artist photographed in an antique store in London. Özseçen returned to these forms in this photograph over and over again throughout the years. She used the same form in Sugar Chandelier exhibited in the 1999 İstanbul Biennial; in the tears falling from façade of the Elhamra Passage on İstiklal Street in Beyoğlu in 2001; and in her 2009 sculpture Kısmet among others. For her exhibition at Rampa Balls is revealed again, to greet us as a three-dimensional photograph/relief/sculpture in the hands of the famous glass master Mayer of Munich. The work, which has been reprinted as relief over glass and ornately designed with mirrors, opens a new space where Özseçen questions the relationship between space and body through her inner experiences. As the spectators are able to see their own reflection on the very work itself, Özseçen invites them to redefine themselves within the space in the photograph.

Özseçen's new work, True Love Soul Mate (2011), which will constitute the backbone of the exhibition at Rampa, is comprised of over 100 separate glass pieces. This work is realized in collaboration with Mayer of Munich and Glasshütte Lamberts, which are among the most prominent handmade glass studios of the world that has for the first time opened their doors to contemporary arts for this work. Each piece is produced in different sizes and forms with hours of effort in 1450-degree ovens. Recalling many of Özseçen's work, heat once more emerges as a dominating component in this work, both as a physical force and as an allegory. For this work, the artist divulges that "the concept of true love and soulmate employed in the title should be sought not in the realm of romantic love, but rather in companionship, camaraderie as signified in the craftsman's delicate touch on the objects he has amorously devoted himself to." Installing two of her works of the same form together, one from the beginning and the other from the most recent phase of her career, Özseçen incites the audience to trace a playful phantom form.

Another work of Özseçen featured in the exhibition is titled Kısmet (2000–2010). In this work, the artist draws from an ivory sphere with a pouch of beans marked with letters inside that she accidentally encounters in an antique store in Amsterdam. The story of this mysterious object, which she learns to be a love toy of a French Countess, is as intriguing as the object itself. Selecting a random bean from the ivory sphere, the Countess would decide which lover she would spend the night with; in a certain respect her fate—kısmet in Turkish. In Özseçen's hands, 'Kısmet' transforms into its contemporary sculpture counterpart of this game of chance. Placed over a pedestal that revolves around its own axis; the body of the conic sculpture made of bull's testicle under an ebony sphere that is protected as if by a porcelain armor. Choosing to work with a loaded material such as the Nymphenburg porcelain, which directly constitutes the basis for handicrafts in Bavaria, in Kısmet the artist has employed the late-Romantic tradition, of which Munich is also an important center. This romanticism is much more lustful than its Northern counterpart and with its seductive and passionate emotionality it has come to voice in perhaps all of the artist's work over the last decade.

Ebru Özseçen lives and works in Munich, Germany.
Ebru Özseçen was born in İzmir, Turkey, in 1971. She graduated in 1994 from Ankara Bilkent University School of Architecture, Interior Architecture and Environmental Design Department. She received her masters degree from the department of Fine Arts and The Institute of Economics and Social Sciences of Bilkent University in 1996. She continue her research and work at Amsterdam Rijksakademie during 1997 - 1998; Vienna Medienwerkstatt in 1998; Helsinki Suomenlinna
NIFCA (Nordic Institute For Contemporary Art) in 1999; Paris Recollets Institute in 2003.

Media Relations
Üstüngel İnanç T +90 212 327 0800 GSM +90 530 569 3221 uinanc@rampaistanbul.com

Rampa Istanbul
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Monday by appointment.

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