By Walking, Olcay Kuş’s seventh solo exhibition, can be seen at Art On Istanbul between November 7 – December 5, 2020. Having moved from Istanbul to Berlin in 2018, the artist approaches this exhibition as a record of his own process of transition.
Olcay Kuş is an artist whose practice is rooted in the texture of the city and the rhythm of the streets. Moving from one city to another thus became a process that directly shaped his work. In the pieces produced in Istanbul, the city’s chaos and fast rhythm were made visible in the layered surfaces and gestures of the paintings. Often employing an ironic perspective on political agendas and their representations in the media, the artist constructed surfaces with newspaper, photo transfers, spray paint, stencils, and oil paint.
In the works created in Berlin, however, the paintings seem to lighten; discernible subjects fade away, giving way to freer and simpler compositions. Typography, once readable in fragments, now appears only as scattered letters. His vibrant color choices and expanded use of space are undoubtedly tied to the exuberance he finds in Berlin’s graffiti and the city’s breathable texture with its parks. With the calmer rhythm of daily life, Kuş’s practice shifted from a political field toward a plastic and aesthetic one.
Kuş works on the canvas through process, letting the dynamics of the painting emerge through decisions made in the moment. Transitioning from Istanbul’s chaos to Berlin’s order, his paintings shed the traces of the former city’s impact, with the surface becoming as light as a film peeled off a wall.
By Walking presents the outcomes of a process in which Kuş perceives, understands, and internalizes the differences between two cities and two daily practices by walking. The artist notes that the exhibition has emerged like a subconscious comparison between the two cities: “From architecture to people, politics to language, from the images I see on the streets and walls, I make comparisons with where I come from and reflect them.”
Olcay Kuş
Born in İzmir in 1985, Kuş pursued his painting education at Dokuz Eylül University before working for many years in Istanbul. His practice draws on the dynamics of metropolitan life and the surfaces of walls, which he considers socially and anthropologically significant. By technically engaging with the spontaneous aesthetics of walls shaped by time and human interaction, he produces paintings, drawings, and sculptures with spray paint, oil paint, newspaper, and stencils. His works, at times focusing on political violence and questions of identity, often carry ironic undertones. In his recent practice, shaped by his move from Istanbul to Berlin, he lightens the surface as much as possible, shifting his focus toward space, stain, and freer composition.The artist lives and works in Berlin.
