Özlem Altın, 1977

Born in Germany, Özlem Altın’s practice spans painting, collage, photography, and site-specific installations. Drawing on the extensive collection of found photographs she has assembled over the years, as well as her own personal archive, the artist constructs a new visual language by detaching photographic images from their original contexts. This method suspends the images’ initial meanings, allowing them to generate new associations. By reorganizing archival materials, Altın creates layered compositions that open up reflections on time, memory, and modes of representation.

The photomontage technique that Altın frequently employs is also central to the work “Pulse and Grief (encapsulated, reactivated).” The artist places photographic fragments that suggest traces of humans, animals, or objects within segmented areas of the canvas. This fragmented structure invites the viewer to explore the possible relationships between the images. Altın often establishes cohesion among these elements through the use of a single-color oil paint; in this work, she chooses red. The dense red surface produces both emotional and visual tension. This approach, which constructs a relationship between part and whole, simultaneously isolates the images added to the canvas, strengthening their singular presence, while also suggesting possible connections highlighted by interventions in blue ink. The visual narrative Altın constructs through images thus forms a conceptual field that unfolds the layers of the images and investigates the dialogue between them. In doing so, the work reveals that the meanings of images are not fixed but can be continually re-produced within new contexts.