Vehbi Koç Foundation Ford Otosan Gölcük Culture and Community Center has been offering a wide range of cultural activities and presenting artistic works to the local community since its inception. The guest of our exhibition space this month is Seçil Kınay with her conceptual art.

The artist conveys underlying emotions hidden in the subconscious and the unconscious through images. Her works combine expressionist symbols with the surroundings, and the images take the viewer on a fictional journey beyond life and aspirations. What triggers this pursuit of the shadows from the past is the concept of “YOU” (or “SEN” in Turkish, and the title of the exhibition) that is in and of life itself.

The artist returns to the region where thousands of families, along with her own, were devastated in the massive earthquake of 1999, to create an engaging environment that stimulates all the senses. Several concepts such as feeling the earthquake among the cubes, exploring the empty space, passing through corridors, and facing one’s own fear are used in the artistic installations. In this confrontation, the artist expresses traces of her own past through smells, sounds and visual elements such as bright neon lights. Using the expressive power of art, she guides the viewer to ask questions, to wonder and to feel, all the while unknowingly drawing the viewer into the installations. As the viewer passes through the corridors, alone in the depths of her inner world, a liberating attitude emerges.

The installations also include mobile, intertwining, dynamic, colorful and fun figures, which present a metaphorical approach to the earthquake phenomenon that the artist aims to conceptualize. The shadows from the artist’s past and the active figures from the present day are fused with emotions.

With developmental, educational and unifying attributes, the arts contribute to the meeting of cultures, preserving and passing them on to the future by way of artistic events and exhibitions. We are very proud and delighted to host Seçil Kınay, who has been producing her art with a subjective sensitivity, bold expression and conceptual techniques, at our Cultural Center founded with the aim of taking the arts to universal levels and serving as a cultural bridge.

Pınar Çimen
Vehbi Koç Foundation
Ford Otosan Gölcük Culture and Community Center
Cultural Center Director

Please click to see some works from YOU.

Project Catalog - 1st Part | Project Catalog - 2nd Part