ISTANBUL.- Pg Art Gallery presents “You are here”, the first solo show of Melis Buyruk, a ceramic artist, who uses ceramic as a medium of expression without denying the material’s intrinsic features, running from July 8 through July 30.

Most of her artworks contain “plates”, one of the most common and functional forms made from ceramic. Artist, preserving its form as it is, turns this industrial object into an art form just by changing its context. Buyruk does this skilfully. Without renouncing plate’s very purpose “presenting” and taking refuge in ready-made, she rather creates her art openly in the realm of design. The main context of this show is therefore based on the interpretation of the act of presentation. The artist describes the relationship between presenting and beauty with the first examples that come to mind: lips, flowers and gold. She associates this approach with “ornament and its commonplaceness.”

This presentation of ordinary is more of a subject of anthropology than aesthetics. The works of the artist nudge us to rethink the concept of human being and its body as a general concept regardless of any individual features. She would like us to consider this notion divorced by its character, gender, ethnicity and social position.

Buyruk, in her works, chooses to emphasise what all human beings have in common. She transmits her motive to her audience through her choice of ordinary acts of human beings such as “eating”: A general, mechanical and instinctive behaviour that is common to all species.

In this show the artist stresses that objects of design, unlike industrial ceramic and plate as an object of mass production, being uniquely recreated for each and every person who demands it, can be shifted to the domain of art. From this point of view, Buyruk’s work has a fairly direct manner, which can be easily understood by every person who came across to her works, however the ones who would like to capture the main idea, should go beyond this direct message. Buyruk, by shifting the paradigm of industrial ceramic, seeks new ways in which she can use the essentials of design with artistic purposes, without completely manipulating their true characteristics.