Onur Mansiz's second solo exhibition at Art On Istanbul "Inertia" will be on view at the gallery's space in Tepebasi between 2 December 2017 and 6 January 2018.
In his hyperrealistic works, Onur Mansiz focuses on "the body" as a stable and steady realm where self-actualization takes place and where subjectivity is represented: The artist places the body at the center of his paintings and creates a second layer of skin on the naked body with the shadows of the images that he reflects upon it. These images range from the face or body parts of another person to images from nature such as leaves, thorns of a rose, and water. Through these secondary textures, Mansiz turns the body from a subject into a space.
The series entitled "Inertia" centers around the immobility of the body. Bodies that are positioned against a dark background are always naked, but this nudity does not offer itself as erotic or pornographic nudity, as certain images are reflected upon them, these groups of stains virtually covering the nudity. In the process, the figures lose their identities, and begin to function as spaces.
"Inertia" is defined as "a continued lack of activity or unwillingness to move." In this sense, it doesn't denote laziness, but rather a state of immobility that one chooses. Viewers can discern this state of being, which gave its name to the exhibition, in the posture of the bodies that are depicted in a photorealistic manner against a black background. These bodies are virtually frozen as if they don't respond to any kind of force coming from the outside or as if they were left floating in calm water.
This passive and simple form of nudity, which doesn't disturb or provoke the viewers in a direct fashion, allows for empathizing with another person through the body.
In the video placed at the center of the exhibition and functioning as an invisible thread connecting all the works to one another, the artist addresses the search of the body that resists against a rising background, its ambivalence, and its defiance against the status quo that has started to change. This video focusing on the movement of two feet in a dark space that is reminiscent of the dark background of the paintings is like the final stage preceding inertia.
Curated by Spanish theorist and artist juan Luis Moraza, this exhibition also tackles the relationship between inertia and the production of art, and calls attention to the product resulting from the resistance of the artist through his state of inertia.
