Artist Statement
"I am a visual artist, specialising in oil painting on Aluminium dibond. I have 8 years experience of being in a studio based environment and am currently living in Cheshire. I regard my practice as being heavily situated around process and development. Oil paint has allowed me to expand on my visual language and investigate the power of the painterly gesture, which lies in the relation between the paint stroke and the clarity and expression of colour. Within my work, there is clear tension between concept and image, the conceptual and formal layering of a painting. Process painting is used as a means to examine and be playful with oil paint, questioning and reflecting the physicality of each mark. I find the rigorous processes to be most important; the way paint is used, swiped on, off and shifted around. My belief is that if I focus on the making and not the end point then the work will create itself, to go through the act of making something beautiful by letting go of its need to try and be something. My artwork challenges each spectator by presenting to them something non-representational, abandoning mimetic styles whilst raising questions which my work then evades. I have taken much inspiration from a quote in the art magazine Turps Banana, edition 17, where it is said “It’s not what you paint, but how you paint”. The ways in which I make work and un-make work through the act of wiping away has become a leading prominent process. I play with additive and subtractive processes, through these procedures I have learned not to be precious with my work, accepting any changes that happen by giving into and trusting the process. These processes lead my work, enabling my art to become something that holds emotion and weight. Currently, I paint in ways that allow for risky paint handling. I wish to expand on this and continue experimentation with resin and oil paint, whilst exploring the vulnerability of an aluminium dibond surface. The potential for uncertainty is ever present within this new and exciting rigorous visual language and this is something I have embraced."
- Meliz Sabanci
"I am a visual artist, specialising in oil painting on Aluminium dibond. I have 8 years experience of being in a studio based environment and am currently living in Cheshire. I regard my practice as being heavily situated around process and development. Oil paint has allowed me to expand on my visual language and investigate the power of the painterly gesture, which lies in the relation between the paint stroke and the clarity and expression of colour. Within my work, there is clear tension between concept and image, the conceptual and formal layering of a painting. Process painting is used as a means to examine and be playful with oil paint, questioning and reflecting the physicality of each mark. I find the rigorous processes to be most important; the way paint is used, swiped on, off and shifted around. My belief is that if I focus on the making and not the end point then the work will create itself, to go through the act of making something beautiful by letting go of its need to try and be something. My artwork challenges each spectator by presenting to them something non-representational, abandoning mimetic styles whilst raising questions which my work then evades. I have taken much inspiration from a quote in the art magazine Turps Banana, edition 17, where it is said “It’s not what you paint, but how you paint”. The ways in which I make work and un-make work through the act of wiping away has become a leading prominent process. I play with additive and subtractive processes, through these procedures I have learned not to be precious with my work, accepting any changes that happen by giving into and trusting the process. These processes lead my work, enabling my art to become something that holds emotion and weight. Currently, I paint in ways that allow for risky paint handling. I wish to expand on this and continue experimentation with resin and oil paint, whilst exploring the vulnerability of an aluminium dibond surface. The potential for uncertainty is ever present within this new and exciting rigorous visual language and this is something I have embraced."
- Meliz Sabanci