The title of İnci Furni’s new solo exhibition at Ferda Art Platform is “Flat/Circle.” The exhibition embraces both meanings of the word DAİRE in Turkish, which refers to a geometric shape, circle, but also to an architectural space, an apartment. The Turkish title therefore pays homage to the two motifs that Furni employs as both an approach and method in her practice: site-specificity and play. For the exhibition, Furni spray paints floral, linear patterns onto the canvas surface, similar to the decorative practices found both on the facade and within the Ralli Apartment Building, embodying a kind of domestication of nature. She also keeps in mind that the apartment where the gallery is located is one floor above where the acclaimed abstractionist Fahrelnissa Zeid held her first solo exhibition in her own apartment in 1945.
The English translation of the exhibition title takes on another double meaning, as flat both refers to the former living space that the gallery now occupies, and to the flatness of the surface of the canvas, a primary painterly concern of Furni’s, which she shares with Zeid. In this exhibition, Furni’s canvases are placed on the ceiling, and emphasize a non-perspectival image-making practice that deals with depth, color, and surface tension, reminiscent of the focus in the mid-career paintings by Zeid. The primary meaning of daire as a geometric shape, namely the circle is also closely connected to the concept of play in Furni’s practice, which has become a more visible aspect of her work since her solo exhibition “She Waited for a While” at Arter. A circular platform-pedestal, derived from that previous exhibition greets the viewer in this space: on it is another pictorial composition made with the cutouts Furni used in the making of the installation above. While the simple geometric shapes and unpainted birchwood nod to children’s toys, the technique the artist has adopted in recent years, which involves a pressure paint sprayer reflects the proximity of her new studio to an industrial area, and bears traces of her performative painting practice.
You’ve been working in a new studio for some time now. For many artists, having a larger space often means increasing the scale of their canvases. However, in your case, moving to a new location in Sanayi seems to have had an impact beyond just scale. Even your technique has become industrialized. Before we discuss the exhibition itself, should we start with these new developments?
In my previous studio-home in Bomonti, I expanded the scale of my work to the point where canvases couldn’t fit through the door; I had to bring them in and out through the window. More than the relationship between space and size, I find it more important to emphasize the difference between working in a domestic setting and working in a ground-level workshop in an industrial area. My movements have definitely changed; I feel more relaxed in front of the surface. As for my relationship with technique, it evolved as follows: Right after my exhibition opened at Arter, I tried using a spray gun for the first time. This technique gradually became layered. After moving here – to this small industrial area in the heart of the city – I realized that printing technologies and various production techniques have different relationships with paint. For instance, car painters use the spray technique, which has layered my ideas. I believe I’ve entered a path that carries traces of toxic industrial culture in technique. Here, I mostly use paper, tearing, rolling, and reshaping it. For this exhibition, though, I used the stretched surfaces of canvases.
We could interpret the cutting, tearing, and rolling of paper as an indication that you don’t see it merely as a surface. In this exhibition, paper serves as a mold for you. This expansion of space by the compressor spray painting method and the actions you describe remind me of a term you’ve used before: “performative painting.” I know how much time you spend standing in the studio; this is a physical activity. Could you elaborate on this process?
For me, paper is a modest surface. By modesty, I mean it’s an everyday, light material used by everyone. Yes, I don’t see paper solely as a surface for painting. In fact, I don’t see any “object” solely in terms of its function; I look at it as it is. That’s why I use forms of paper that highlight its physical properties (bending, folding, rolling, tearing, etc.). I’d like to remind you of my exhibitions “Still Life” (2022, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna) and “On Color” (2023, Bils, Istanbul). The term “mold” is very accurate, especially in this exhibition, where the cut-outs serve as an interface to somewhat contain the movement, though I can’t entirely control it. I shift images and colors, aiming for them to look like flawed prints or faulty images. Working with a spray gun also allowed me to move on broader surfaces. I’ve shifted from the brush-arm relationship to using my whole body in motion, in a performance.
Of course, every form of painting has a performative background, but I’m not talking about a performance based on optical illusion or craftsmanship here. I’m referring to the traces of the active time I spend in front of the surface. Whether there’s an image or not, it’s shaped by a performative, improvisational process. Watercolors are also like this; they’re fluid and take shape in the moment.
The cut-out technique and the playfulness of your color palette immediately remind me of Matisse’s late works. He, too, was a painter who extended his designs beyond the canvas and onto walls. In this exhibition, you’ve carried your designs to the ceiling, echoing the art deco features of the building that houses the gallery and referencing the floral decoration vocabulary you began using with your “Potpourri” (2024) series. You even have designs inspired by found objects, like a vase from which you’ve drawn an entire imagery. Could you talk about this interest?
I’ve always admired Matisse’s bold use of color and his ability to transform decorative elements into painting. For me, it reaches risky territories. His way of extending and positioning painting in spaces is also admirable, and fortunately, it’s not something only he did; it’s part of a tradition.
Matisse created collages with colorful cut-out forms. His decorative, stylized language is very pleasing, and I imagine this technique made it easy to spread his work across spaces. Collage has branched out significantly since the 20th century. I see my cut-outs as akin to the toxic interfaces of digital printing culture. I use them to mask the image. As I work layer upon layer, I also appreciate the “dirtiness” that accumulates.
Lately, I’ve been working on colorful harmonies, following a monochromatic phase. Color carries the risk of becoming decorative. In my 2023 exhibition “Prova” at Bils in Istanbul, I explored the relationship between color, shirt-history-body-brand. In group exhibitions I’ve been invited to, I’ve never approached color harmonies solely in terms of beauty. Even in games, this wasn’t the case.
Returning to this exhibition, I’d like to emphasize something very important for me. My intention isn’t to create a typical gallery exhibition in terms of scale or layout. By drawing attention to the style, historicity, and current identity of the building, I highlighted the potential the space offers and positioned myself there. My desire to alter the relationship with painting remains constant. The exhibition is positioned as an interior, not just in terms of the painting’s subject matter. Like the placements in still lifes and portraits, the relationship with the space is also central here.
I came across “Potpourri” online. It’s a ceramic vase from the colonial period, covered in images symbolizing savagery. Initially, I thought it had a fascinating form, intricately depicted. Then I realized it was filled with bizarre depictions of wild animals, colorful, chaotic plants, and other exotic representations. At the time, I was discussing a similar project with my friends from Vienna, artist duo Hanakam-Schuller. I approached this project with the question, “How do we place fragments of nature in domestic interiors and spaces?” Marble surfaces, stylized nature illustrations, decorations, flowers, and objects. Every surface is covered with these patterns. The floral images I’ve repeated on the canvases took shape during this process.
I’m glad you touched on that. As we look closely at the imagery on the vase you found online, we realize that behind what appears attractive – be it color, shape, or the sign itself, likely a blend of all these – there’s always something unsettling being presented. The fact that you found this vase online, encountering it in an intermediary form, further distances nature from itself, layered with distortions and shifts. Your paintings also contain these shifts and distortions. You mentioned printing technologies and flawed prints when talking about working in an industrial setting. You create a surface that occasionally “errors” with these appealing, harmonious colors and curved lines. Why?
Yes, we often encounter these images online. The internet is a web of fragmented, visual information. Images flow from one context to another, causing inevitable deformations and shifts; I’m not highly versed in these topics. The internet has a “glossy” visual language that belongs to another reality. I find this interesting, though I don’t fully understand it.
Painting, as a medium, is sometimes seen as “primitive” among techniques, but I focus on and work with the painting surface itself. The methods I typically choose are primitive: I make my own cut-outs; I don’t get them printed at a print center. I use Bristol board. Since moving my studio to an industrial area, one of the first things I noticed was the digital printing materials I mentioned. There are also artificial materials. I feel their impact. The spray gun technique, similar to printing technology, sprays paint onto the surface, where it adheres or disperses as dust particles. This allows me to layer images; the layers between the first and last remain visible. If there are errors, I can’t cover them up.
Painting moving lines with dual or triple shifts, repeating images, activating the surface – all of this brings life to the painting’s inherent reality. This isn’t an imitation of nature. It’s a painting of “vivid” liveliness. In the end, the paintings represent only themselves.
Could we say that painting is an old tradition and, as you mentioned, perhaps a primitive technique? Yet, from the very beginning, it’s an archive/memory that records our ways of seeing. When we think about today’s visual culture, there are multiple layers that influence our perceptions: the physical, the landscapes we see firsthand but only perceive within our limits; then there are those transferred onto surfaces that surround us, like architecture, painting, photography, etc. Next come the various transfer techniques to flat surfaces, such as printing and its characteristics. Another layer is the screen and its surface – the internet. Your installation in “Circle” brings all of these together on surfaces and in a perception of space, acknowledging these distortions and shifts. In doing so, it also reveals your methods and playground, perhaps even inviting us into your game. What do you think?
Yes, your interpretation is very accurate! In the end, the layers, surfaces, and technological relationships and effects you mentioned are fully present in this exhibition. I try to lighten them.
11 November 2024
In conversation with the artist on the occasion of Flat/Circle (Daire), İnci Furni’s solo exhibition at Ferda Art Platform, Istanbul, 12 November – 7 December 2024.