Ardan Özmenoğlu, 1979

Born in 1979 in Ankara, Ardan Özmenoğlu examines the meanings of representations that exist in everyday situations and urban life. She looks at the consumption habits of individuals and communities from the cultural perspective of a vast geography. She revisits heavily used images and clichés from popular culture as well as iconic images from politics and Turkish Yeşilçam melodramas within their original sociopolitical contexts. She problematizes the culture of consumption that exists within the visual sphere, while also making reference to the uniqueness and material values of art objects.

Özmenoğlu reinterprets conventional objects and representations that generally go unnoticed, and transposes them onto post-it notes which she combines with an original printing technique she has been using since 2005. The material she uses allows her to step outside the two-dimensional tradition of painting and create multilayered surfaces. The artist’s series “manhole covers with designs”, from her silkscreen prints, makes reference to unnoticed worlds that consist of everyday spaces and functional areas in diverse cities. In this series, the invisible covers we pass over daily are moved into the viewer’s field of vision, into a space where they can be noticed. Designed specifically for each city, these unique objects shape and mark the visual identity of the city, while each also becomes a memory-image pertaining to urban life. Özmenoğlu produces her works like an everyday traveler who collects images as reminders, incorporating a variety of stories, memories and events pertaining to an individual and collective past.