Lot 13: IRFAN ONURMEN

IRFAN ONURMEN B. 1958 UNTITLED (FROM THE GAZE SERIES) signed and dated 2010 ; signed twice and dated 2010 on the reverse oil on canvas 130 by 110cm.; 51 1/8 by 43 1/4 in.

"Over the last twenty years, Irfan Onurmen, a leading figure within the contemporary art scene of Turkey, created work that is both coherent and pluralistic. His oeuvre consists of paintings and drawings on canvas, newspaper and tulle as well as installations. In general, his works critically analyse our current state of society through presentation in the media. He is especially concerned with common, ordinary, everyday life where anonymous figures struggle to get along inside the chaos of the heterogeneous urban environment that surrounds them.

Since the late 1980's, Irfan Onurmen creates paintings on canvas, where fragmented images of faceless protagonists invite the spectator to actively complete the work in order to become part of the scene. Early in his career, the artist decided to erase the face of the figure because he is more concerned with the general effect of the painting than with any individual story of a particular person. Like an abstract expressionist painting, he creates an all over composition without a central focus point; therefore, one cannot classify his style as being either purely figurative or purely abstract."

Marcus Graf, "Irfan Onurmen: Calm Like a Bomb", in: Pi Artworks Book of Artists 2010-2011, Istanbul 2011, n.p.