Ardan Özmenoğlu Gods and Goddesses

Ardan Özmenoğlu meets art lovers from Ankara with her exhibition entitled, “Gods and Goddesses”, which will take place in Gallery Siyah Beyaz between 17 January and 17 February 2020.

Özmenoğlu, who is known for subverting the expressions and images of global popular culture and Turkish popular culture by skillfully using different media, carries her compositions she has built in two dimension to the third dimension with the traditional silk print technique she applies on the surface she has created by bringing Post-it notes together.

In her exhibition entitled “Gods and Goddesses”, Özmenoğlu conveys the production and consumption mechanisms and the process of human-nature relationship through the three cults of gods and goddesses in Anatolia and the language she created herself, to the audience.

In the exhibition, as three main figures, there are the depictions of Cybele, God of Fertility and Artemis. Although these gods and goddesses existed in different periods and styles, Özmenoğlu sees and deals with the concepts of fertility, power and reproductivity as a part of the harmony with the environment for the people living in those periods, with their relationship to nature and their meanings attributed through it. Özmenoğlu also mentions the disappearance of modern human organic relationship with nature and environment, and sees people responsible for the problems such as environmental pollution, forest fires, the unavoidable plastic wastes and climate change and starts an archaeological research through gods and goddesses. Özmenoğlu speaks about the fact that the Cybele figurine, which is 20 cm in original size and exhibited at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, comes out as the largest piece in the exhibition as; “You feel like bowing before the majesty of Cybele, but in fact it is the nature you bow before.”

In the exhibition; Özmenoğlu, who combines a traditional technique with a contemporary mediator or a contemporary technique with a traditional object, also presents her glass sculptures in which she uses glass layers as canvas and transforms two dimensions into three dimensions.

Ardan Özmenoğlu's exhibition, “Gods and Goddesses” can be visited from January 17th to February 17th, 2020, every day except Sundays between 11.00-19.00 at Gallery Siyah Beyaz.