art

Orhan Onuk’s paintings draw the viewer into the labyrinths of memory, as if embarking on a journey around a familiar figure. The unease that prevails here quickly gives way to a sense of estrangement. Faces, gazes, bodies, and other images detach from their own realities and transition into another world. The visual structure emerges as a carrier of intuitive knowledge within a newly formed reality. In this space, the boundaries between human and animal, consciousness and instinct, the visible and the repressed are constantly transgressed.

 

The artist’s approach to the figure involves acts of fragmentation, erasure, and reconstruction. The figure exists both with its surroundings and apart from them; it is neither entirely itself nor wholly another. Fragmentation is not merely a visual preference, but, in combination with other elements, becomes a reflection of psychological states. The artist’s use of color further deepens this rupture, establishing a psychological field in the background. Within this space, dissolving faces avoid direct engagement with the viewer through a deliberate withdrawal. Rather than constructing a narrative, they seem to sift fragments of a condition through memory. This exhibition unfolds as a narrative shaped by Onuk without resorting to definitive statements, one whose proposition continuously shifts within itself.

​

Gülten Yalmanbaş