Hands that give life to metal…


Hands that give life to metal…

Art and antique enthusiasts met at the "Bodrum Art and Antique Fair". At the fair, which welcomed its visitors at the Herodotus Cultural Centre on July 28, 40 galleries and over 4000 works were exhibited in an area of 4,000 square metres with the participation of more than 500 artists.

At the event, where art met its audience, we had a pleasant conversation with two young sculptors; Ilayda Kepez and Ufuk Gunes Taskin.

How did you decide to become a sculptor?

Ufuk: Sculpture is one of the most powerful works in an artistic manner in terms of interaction that a person can encounter in the world. In my point of view, the sculpture is one of the strongest elements of this interaction network. We are like disconnected individuals in a world where everyone is constantly alienating from each other. I have chosen a turn of phrase to express myself to people, and this language of expression has been the art of sculpture.

Ilayda: A sculpture is a 3D object, which weights in space. You can turn around it, touch it, and shape it. This had impressed me a great deal and then I decided to sculpt during my high school years.

What sorts of sculptures do you create; what are your themes philosophically?

Ilayda: In my works, I have tried to highlight human states more. I am trying to make a 3D version of the phrase, "We laugh at our misery”. I am trying to create something critical with a little humorous language. Using metal and different materials, I combine all those moods, which we feel, and present them to the audience.

I desire to convey my thoughts to the audience in a 3D way because I know that my concerns and thoughts are also the concerns and thoughts of the audience. I want to be an intermediator and interrelate. I desire to be an intermediary to express their concerns.  

Ufuk: I usually work on metal materials, too. I should say that especially the sculptures I created using nails are my signature works. A nail is an object that has a context and a function in daily life. Maybe we use it to repair something, maybe in construction. When I take this object and detach it from its function in daily life and transform it into an art object, this transformation affects me deeply.

What are the things that make you inspired?

Ilayda: The things I read feed me the most. Art history is full of such fascinating stories. What really feeds me is their inspiration; their working discipline.

Ufuk: Actually, there are a number of fields that feed me. Not only literature, sculpture, art history but also science fiction and today's philosophers attract my attention. We, artists, always try to search for the new, the non-existent, and the objects that can tread a path toward the future. What we try to do is to touch the creative senses of people.

How does a sculpture come into existence?

Ilayda: The first phase is to research and after the sketch is formed in your mind, the dimensions of the sculpture are determined. Metal materials inspire me much in this process. It feels like making it out of nothing. You create something and make its existence by adding some materials. When it comes to stone, for example, it is the opposite. By removing some existing parts you reveal the form. I usually use weld in my sculptures. I add the metal rods one by one and then weld them on top. After everything is finished, the grinding and cleaning process begins. After a long grinding process, we clean it, and eventually, the final form revealed. Of course, it does not end there, because metal is a material that transforms in nature. It is able to disappear and rust. As artists, what we really look for is immortality; therefore, we prevent sculptures from rusting with help of using some materials and display them.

Ufuk: There is a 1.50 metre tall human figure that I made entirely of nails. It is called “the body that has lost its memory”. The sculpture, which I created during the most intense period of lockdowns during the pandemic process, is a work on how the problems accumulated and caused memory loss in the mind of a person, who does not want to see and talk anymore in this chaos in today's world. This work was created by shaping more than 2000 pieces of nails one by one by hand, hammering them into shape, and then welding them together.