SANATORIUM is hosting Çağla Köseoğulları's solo exhibition titled “They Were Just Constantly Flying In Circles” between May 5 - June 10, 2023. Curated by Kevser Güler, the exhibition brings together Çağla Köseoğulları’s works produced between 2020 and 2023 using various media and techniques.
In They were just constantly flying in circles, Köseoğulları explores the possibilities of a space for mutual interaction that exists between void and surface as well as movement and trace through a performative production process that renders the distance of the gaze doubtable. The artist’s paintings and sculptures around the concept of body memory are born out of her reflections on ways to reveal the traces of individual and collective memory written on the body. Inspired by Laurie Anderson’s song “The Beginning of Memory”, the exhibition proposes to think about abstract forms of encountering memories embedded in the body.
In her works for the exhibition, Çağla Köseoğulları creates volatile stains on the surfaces that she intervenes in with intuitive hand movements. With gestures that carry the trace of a body memory, she refuses the surface of the Works to remain in a state of withdrawal, solely making room for the image, instead by moving the surfaces themselves she emphasizes their agency and ability to affect and be affected. In these performative paintings, the artist uses charcoal and charcoal powder on paper, and ink on PVC, experiencing meditative processes that inform encounters with the unexpressed, unrevealed memories which have failed to find a place in the stories told. The artist, whose sculptures in the exhibition are also created with similar gestures, explores the possibilities of folding clay as another way of reenacting the body’s recollections.
