ISTANBUL.- Zilberman Gallery announced the representations of Başak Bugay and Yaşam Şaşmazer.

Başak Bugay (1979, Istanbul, Turkey) lives and works in Istanbul. She gradutes from the Painting Department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in 2002 and completed her masters degree at the same university in 2006 where she currently pursues her Ph.D.

In her works, Başak Bugay explores ways to represent the relationship between the psychic constructions of the subject and the collective unconscious. Using a wide range of material and an ironic discourse, she puts forth themes like childhood traumas, denial and defense mechanisms, and sleep/death. Taking her relationship with material and process as organic, Bugay’s production process is shaped through the use of materials of fabric, fiber, plaster, and terracotta. Cut off from the outside world, isolated, confined to their own space the figures in their privacy do not directly interact with the audience. These figures are tough and distant and at once peaceful and familiar. Bugay lets the audience to figure out the hidden elements trapped in these spaces of privacy, breach into their secrecy and complete their uncanny and hidden stories. Although seeming safe and warm, in the environments and figures in her works is contained the possibility of an attack.

Her recent solo exhibitions: It’s a Joy to be Hidden (Milli Reasürans Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey, 2018), Doll (Artist’s Studio, Istanbul, Turkey, 2015). The group exhibitions she participated are: Dancing Into One, (Yuvakimyon Greek High School, Istanbul, Turkey, 2019), The Big Picture (DEPO, Istanbul, Turkey, 2018), A Day at Hotel (Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey, 2018), Animal (Tophane-i Amire Culture and Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey, 2012), Figurative (Alan Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey, 2010) and Where is Diyarbakır Prison (Karşı Sanat, Istanbul, Turkey, 2011).

Yaşam Şaşmazer (b. 1980, İstanbul) lives and works in Istanbul. She graduated from Sculpture Department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and completed her master degree at the same university.

In her works focusing on the effects of certain socio-psychological conditions on individuals, Yaşam Şaşmazer questions the good and bad in people, their bright and dark sides, the societal roles, and the clichés related to identity and cultural constructs. While she constructed these features of human nature through wooden sculptures of children in her early works, in time, her investigation has moved towards bodies of adults. These uncanny characters she produced with her material of choice, in this case, wood, refer to the eerie and dark sides of being a child/human. The dichotomies intrinsic to human nature, the inner darkness, the tendency to violence, and the processes of self-discovery, are merged with the concepts of shadow, doppelgänger and metanoia as expressions of fear and angst, creating both fictional and autobiographical characters. In her current works, she tackles the specific relationship between mankind and nature, focusing on its contradictions and malfunctions; and she observes, through her faceless and anonymous characters, themes such as invasion, decay, ruins, remembrance, and transience of memories.

Her solo exhibitions include Dark Matter (Kunstverein Ingolstadt, Ingolstadt, Germany, 2017), Metanoia (Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, USA, 2016; BERLINARTPROJECTS, Berlin, Germany, 2015; Tophane-i Amire Culture and Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey, 2014), Doppelgänger (Künstlerhaus Marktoberdorf, Germany, 2012), Illuminated Darkness (Aubin Gallery, London, United Kingdom, 2011). Selected group exhibitions she participated in are: The Clandestine Life of Objects (Evliyagil Dolapdere, Istanbul, Turkey, 2019), Sorrowful and Restless: A selection of the Papko Art Collection (İstanbul, Turkey), Home is Where The He(art) Is (Galerie Paris-Bejing, Paris, France, 2018), Pulsanti Aperietur (The Abdulmecid Mansion, Istanbul, Turkey, 2017), Replacement (Rampa Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey, 2016), Glasstrees Gotika: Collateral Event of the 56th Biennale Arte (Venice, Italy, 2015), Encounters: Contemporary art from Turkey in Korea (ARA Art Square, Seoul, South Korea, 2012), Confessions of Dangerous Minds (Saatchi Gallery, London, United Kingdom, 2011).