Juan Botella Lucas: Seven Sleepers (as)

Juan Botella Lucas is at Pi Artworks Tophane with his solo exhibition ''Seven Sleepers (as)'' between the dates April 28th - June 16th, 2012.

The exhibition which is composed of Lucas' latest work mainly brings out the   unconsciousness of everyday life. The extraordinary and sometimes even confusing features of his work invites the audience to investigate, to question the inner self and to the reproduction of rational thought.

With sculptures, video art and textual works that are the combinations of both the artist's perception and the reality of the world under the "riddle and puzzle" concept, the artist wants to focus on the status of reality. "Riddle and puzzle" is a shape of behavior that was produced under boredom. Despite the possibilty of being understood as a meaningless mischievousness, it is a materialized life force rather than being a time consuming activity that avoids from any mental and physical effort. Remarkably, sponge is the main element of Lucas' work. He also uses other ready made objects in his artistic practice. The first part of the story, "Seven Sleepers (as)", will be visualized over the mattress form. Because mattress as a metaphor is a stage for birth, death, illness, thought, nightmares and dreams (the back door of reality).

The second part of the exhibition, which is planned to be held in September and titled "Seven Sleepers (The Second Awakening)", is the final step of the project. The second exhibition is also evolved around the "Seven Sleepers" myth mentioned in Bible and the Quran.

Juan Botella Lucas was born in Madrid in 1970, graduated from Madrid Universidad Complutense de Madrid Faculty of Fine Art, Department of Sculpture in 1995. He lives in Turkey since 1998 and he is currently working as a lecturer in Mersin University Faculty of Fine Arts. He has been represented by Pi Artworks since 2007 and had two solo exhibitions titled "Bailes de mente II" (2008) and "70% Water 99% Sponge" (2009). Other selected exhibitions by Juan Botella Lucas are "Museen on Line", Lügen Museum (Germany, 1999); "Death=Death" curated by Levent Çalıkoğlu (Istanbul, 2001); "22nd Alexandria Biennial" (Egypt, 2003); "10th Istanbul Biennial" under Hafriyat Group (Istanbul, 2007); "Fasa Fiso", Cer Modern (Ankara, 2010); "Where Fire Has Struck", Depo (Istanbul, 2011). He has been honored by "Meister Schüler" award by Berlin Fine Arts Academy in 1999.