Ummuhan Yoruk: Future
Future, Ümmühan Yörük’s second solo exhibition at Pi Artworks Istanbul looks at the apprehension people feel for the future and the challenges it brings. Yörük considers her recent works as like agenda notes, onto which she inscribes her varying subject matter. The exhibition consists of four different series of new works, each in a different medium: painting, sculpture, fabric works, and ready-mades.
Why am I doing this? / Variation Series consists of kitsch, decorative objects originating from the mid-60s. These ready-mades are the first works encountered by the viewer and have inspired the form taken by the works crafted by the artist for the exhibition. Selection and interpretation of these objects is not about dealing with their status but about the artist’s effort to abandon the traditional boundaries between purpose made, found, and decorative objects.
Line of Fate Series consists of 18 separate elements each consisting of anagram of the Turkish word for Labor, Emek, which is written out in red thread. While each of these framed cells share the same letters, their final forms are strikingly different. To create this work Yoruk has had to navigate the pre-planned stricture of her visual template of looping and weaving the lettering that restricts the options at her disposal within the creative process.
Blood, Sweat, Tears, Saliva and Snot Series consists of a series of handkerchiefs embroidered with different functional designs, such as the markings of a tape measure. While in Turkey, handkerchiefs hold significant cultural importance, in these works the artist eludes to their more functional role as receptacle’s for bodily fluids.
The final series the viewer will encounter is Smiling Suits Me, a group of works most reminiscent of the artist’s earlier practice. For it, the artist reproduces in fabric a series of photographic portrait images of herself at different stages of her life - combining the beauty and artificiality of carefully posed portrait photos with the naturalness and ugliness of the artist’s terrible teeth.
Notes to Editors:
Yoruk’s debut solo show Kulahima Masallar, took place in 2011 at Ankara’s METU Library Exhibition Hall. She has also participated in group shows such as Me Myself and I: ME as a Dilemma at Cer Modern, Ankara (2013), Flesh Colored at Ege University, AKM, Izmir (2011) and Fasa Fiso at Cer Modern, Ankara (2010), all in Turkey. Her work can be found in numerous private collections as well as in the collection of Özyeğin University, Istanbul. Yoruk studied at the Hacettepe University’s Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting, and graduated in 2012. And still continuing her M. A in Painting Department, Gazi University, Ankara.
