In his first solo show, Elmacı responds to societal concerns and daily experiences through intimate portraits. He explores inner worlds of the characters in his works and pushes the audience to question their own personal faiths.
In his “The Rich Cry Too” series, the artist focuses on the materialistic security solutions through wealth, a theme which is considered as the only real way to guarantee security in our society today. The fire metaphor behind the figures in Elmacı’s canvases refutes the belief that money and a high-quality lifestyle protect individuals from daily concerns and ensures their security. The symbolic chaos indicates that materialistic walls don’t provide a real security solution; but, individuals desperately keep hiding behind them. The artist, who touches on a common thema in his three series, invites the audience to question the concept of personal security through different characters and lifestyles in his works. In this series, Elmacı displays individual’s fears and desires with the commoditised bodies on the same canvas.
In his second series, “Inheritance Passes from Father to Son”, the artist examines established rules and modes of behaviour learned during the period of childhood development and their continuity into adulthood. In this series, Elmacı interprets inheritance as a product of birth instead of death, and presents the audience a world in which children reflect the ambitions of the previous generation. This artificial projection of self awareness renders the subject blind to both their own reflection and how they are perceived by their periphery.
“I Believed in You, I Trusted in You” is Elmacı’s final series in the exhibit. Every individual, who seeks temporary solutions to survive in this insecure world, starts to believe in the derived super hero images of the system and the cult of celebrity. When the individual looses faith in the real, sometimes the solution is in the creation of a new, non-real variant. From a distant vantage point when the individual perceives the chaos created by the search for security, it has to confront the catch twenty two of image versus reality faith versus self doubt which subsequently brings it back to square one.
Inheritance Passes From Father to Son can be seen between May 17 - June 18, 2011 at x-ist.
Ali Elmacı, Sinop 1976
He is graduated from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Painting Department. Elmacı took place in several group exhibitions since 2007. Among the exhibitions and fairs Elmacı participated are “Art Against Invasion” (Karşı Sanat, 2007), “My Name is Casper” (Old Sümerbank Building, 2009), “Plus 21” (Tüyap Art Fair, 2009), “Genç Ustalar Usta Gençler” (MKM, 2010) and Istanbul Contemporary 2010.