“I saw the sun, it was flying low.” René Char / 3, 2014
Oil, acrylic, collage on canvas, 100 cm

Setenay Özbek graduated from Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Performing Arts in 1990. Between 1983 and 1986, she studied arts (painting) with several important instructors such as Sabri Berkel, Hülya Düzenli, Erkan Özdilerk, Ergül Özkutan in İstasyon Fine Art Academy. The artist, who is also a member of the PEN International Writers and International Plastic Arts Association, works and produces in her individual studio in Istanbul in the meantime.

Inner Reminiscences is an exhibition of a life period. All people go through different periods in their lives which have their own specific feelings, colours, spaces, music, scents, books, dreams and people … Human life forms itself by deconstructing the pieces of these periods, and presents them to us as a ‘whole’ again; this is the moment when our creativity and souls are affected or nurtured by these periods, and they reflect the art that we produce.

Setenay’s paintings form the story of a period in her life and undoubtedly, reflect all art fields that the hand of her soul could reach enthusiastically. The main series of the exhibition is formed by the geometric deconstruction of the completed large-scale paintings; these pieces are put on diverse completed paintings with different stories and according to the artist, the main work is completed when these two are combined with each other. The works in the exhibition also include small scale compositions which are related to the large-scale ones thematically. These Black and White Series which are formed by small compositions give the individual and social details of the period in which the artist has produced her works, and these works enable new readings for the audience…

Setenay opens up a period in her life either by defragmenting the pieces, or deconstructing the whole; she invites us into her story by touching our lives with her enthusiastic and colourful art which is the visual and spiritual reflection of her intense, special period of life…

Catalog

“My love in the blue-beacon dress, I kiss the fever of your face, Where the light lies taking its secret joy…” René Char / 1, 2014, Oil, acrylic, collage on canvas, 100×120 cm

“I saw the sun, it was flying low.” René Char / 4, 2014, Oil, acrylic, collage on canvas 100×100 cm