"Girlish", an exhibition to see tomorrow

Press release:

Girlish

Olgu Ülkenciler who has lived her childhood in the 90s, is one of the members of the lost generation. She tries to overcome the artificial gap between herself and the outside world imposed on her by the logic of survival and competition – the obligation to pretend as if nothing bothers her, as if she is happy all the time – by reflecting in her painting the conditions of femininity she experiences.

In the exhibition Girlish, the artist examines the phases of her individualization and her sexual awareness related to space. Despite the fact that the works in Ulkenciler?s second solo exhibition leave a pornographic impression on the audience by the use of disembodied sexual organs that have interlaced each other, when carefully analyzed one realizes that they make visible a complex spatial system that have been characterized by gender codes. In this system, the girl travels between her house (decorated by lacework and releases blood or dark smokes through its door and chimney) and the external world. In the paintings, while the house represents a place for sexual privacy and isolation, the world outside the house is the space where sexuality is shared and at the same time repressed. Body fluids flowing from one place to the other and the playboy bunny which runs away from the house and comes back again combine these two separate places and seem like saying ?even though space is fragmented, body and mind will always go beyond the boundaries?. Therefore, the questions ?where are we??, ?where is the house??, ?where is sexuality?? are wrong to ask when it comes to Ulkenciler?s paintings. The actual question is the relationship modals that we create in our minds and spatial practices we experience in our daily lives or where the rabbit that runs away from the house goes or what it does when it is away.

Elif Gül Tirben