YEKTA ÇETiNKAYA

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Stemming from research and consisting of several mixed media paintings, Histories of Knowledge presents a multitude of approaches toward history. The paintings in this body of work provide the viewers with a non-centralized perspective as regards to visual culture and knowledge production while examining the power dynamics and estrangement between the Western world and Middle Eastern culture.

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Concentrated on the visual languages found in Anatolian art-making practices, the history of astronomy/celestial navigation technologies, and the intersection of these two subjects; the navigation of various approaches to representation, these works oscillate between painting’s illusionary capacities and the potentiality of traditional Middle Eastern practices that favor flattening of space over linear perspective.​

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Art historical references pulled from 17th-century French Baroque period ballet costume designs, 20th-century political caricature, Middle Eastern luster tiles, and Anatolian rug and kilim motifs, are woven together in gesturally painted, representational or semi-abstract spaces.​​

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While these works vary in the styles of representation they employ, the common theme remains the critical and at times playful questioning of hierarchies of aesthetics and Western canonical histories of knowledge. These paintings examine these dominant structures while proposing a non-linear progression of history and visual representation.