Erman Akçay, 1982 İstanbul doğumlu, Marmara Üniversitesi Güzel Sanatlar Fakültesi mezunu (2004), birçok farklı disiplinde işler üretmiş grafik sanatçısı, okur-yazar, eleştirmen, artizan.
Erman Akçay, born 1982 in Istanbul, graduated from Marmara University Fine Arts Faculty (2004), lives and works in Istanbul. He is a multi-media visual artist making paintings, artist books, zines and art prints. Akçay’s continuous artistic output began in 1990s, making punk-rock zines and graphic art.
“Çizgiler uyumsuza seslenir. Çizgi bir sınır talebidir. Uyumsuzluğun sınır kaldıraçları renkleri, duyumları karıştırır. Erman Akçay’ın işleri de bu uyumsuz çizginin sınırlarını yokluyor. Onun dünyasında nefessiz kalmak mübah. Çünkü dünyayla cebelleşirken, dünyaya sataşırken aynı nefesi bırakamayız. Akçay’ın çizimlerinde bir korku geleneği hakim. Çağın sesini bu korkudan alıyor. Korku yerleşik bir sonuç olarak değil Munch’un çığlığını güncelleyerek bugüne geliyor. Ölü sesler, iskeletler, kuru kafalar, yarılmış bedenler, metafizik ve maddenin içinde sürüklenen özne sesini imgelerin korkusuyla birleştiriyor.
Bir uçta kendi yarattığı dünyanın sınırlarına hapsolmuş bir özne, diğer yanda bütün kayboluşlara rağmen yaşamda ayak direten bir sesleniş.”
Dolunay Aker, 2020
Erman Akçay’s Delicious Disasters
Cemal Akyüz, 2007
Erman was born twenty four years ago. It was 80s and Mae West was dead. 20th century art history adore to classify all the modernists as post war babies driven by optimism (their parents at least) and had an illusion of progress. Which war? I don’t know, there were so many.
Artists who were born in 80’s clearly belong to 21st century. Allen Ginsberg already said it : America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world! Be in love with your life and let’s welcome them as creative and self-conscious artists of Generation Y.
Kids create in a kaleidoscopic reality, their country and their world – be it real, be it virtual – which is coming apart. He can link with his surroundings comfortably to colour it up and with same ease can contribute to an idea which can be as far as Holland. They question.
Erman is involved in a surreal Istanbul/ Izmir fanzine called Düzensiz or Disordered. It stroke the attention of the latest Portuguese surreal movement and he is invited to bless the exhibition with his youth along with his gang in an exhibition in Estremoz, a posthumous homage to all time great Portuguese surrealist, none other than Mario Cesariny. Quickly reshaped and put all his act together to wave his goodbye with a selection of dadaist collages and subhuman portraits.
More than anything Erman is a street producer. Cooperative soul of the street combines with his formal art training. Constant craving for decorating the streets of anonymous ugly metropols, sole efforts to give dynamism to the city without asking anything back, street artist is a street hero.
His series of black and white hand made large collages, surprisingly against the nature of famous collages we all are used to, consists only his own original work. Minimalist details of texture breath. Repetitive points, strikes, cloudy blurry images which are cut into perfect rectangular shapes and montaged to dada perfection. Rare colour assemblages dares to camp it up. Mother and child series consist picture perfect water colours which dash a tang of surrealist incapability. His Mona Lisa series are Marilyn Manson meets Condoleeza Rice, how scary can one get? Porcelain doll like faces with flies and insects coming out from the eyes, or is it just imagination? From streets to grotesque, from dada to pointism he is the perfect collage of his own persona, a strong but sentimental representation of phantasmagoria.
His youth attacks all intellectual creativity, that young man can make dada look fresh 90 years after, streets can be enjoyable playgrounds, and the dull old world an open air exhibition, you are all invited to take a piece with you from his artistic dandy.
“Bir elinin hala çocukluğunun kalbinde olması seni diğerlerinden ayıran nokta. Löpçük bana, asansör müziği eşliğinde çirkin bir çocuğun aynaya bakarak işlediği cinayetleri itiraf ettiği bir yayın organı gibi geliyor…” -Tan Tolga Demirci
Evolution of Consciousness
The ways of seeing and perception in Art are various and imply vast imaginativeness and hallucination of humankind as well as reality. All opens its door to creativity, freedom, soul and mind etc. under society until Universe’s expansion become universal under minor and major entities and identities. Therefore I would say herein Retina Decadence Exhibition which is curated by Erman Akçay gathering international and Turkish artists all around world to take public attention differently on one of those vision of our times called Graphic Art. It is enigmatic, bizzare, sluggish, histeric and evilsake mixed in all and more under(upper)world which underlines/ minds/ pins the artificial being of human soul, its bizzare, absurd and discordant existance and sub-concious inbetween pain and passion meanwhile trying to find an exit through its striving illumination. This is what we should expect and except as well as include and tolarate and finally put into our mosaic of art-world in İstanbul or elsewhere in World to broaden our view of conciousness as implied by ist name Decadence is on continue in this World now and then Retina observes it by narrow and wide blinked mind and eye side from dark to light and from light to dark but in the end openness is everything in Contemporary World and its Art. Retina Decadence keeps this secret to whisper your perception by its sickness inside to be healed asif in effect of dark hole after Big-Bang occured out of scattered scene of existance.
Erkut Tokman, October 2020
Osmanağa, Kadıköy – İstanbul
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