Mamut Limited Vol.1 pop-up, the first exhibition of the Mamut Art Project team's Mamut Limited (Artist Editions) project, which aims to meet all creative people working in different fields and techniques from visual arts to design, music to fashion, took place at Yapı Kredi bomontiada between September 16-October 1, 2023. We are introducing the artists of this year's Mamut Limited, which will present special selections throughout the year on its online platform mamutlimited.com. Our eighteenth guest is Onur Hastürk
Yalçın Yeşiltepe
Let's start by talking about your artistic journey. In addition to your undergraduate education at Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Ceramics and Glass, you also completed a minor in Interior Architecture. How did you steer towards this path?
I have been involved in drawing for as long as I can remember. The environment I grew up in consisted of disciplined characters belonging to engineers and technical professions. I can clearly say that their efforts to raise me in order and discipline laid the groundwork for the interior architecture department I will study in the future. I always felt that I would study something related to fine arts, but I did not foresee that my path would cross with the ceramics department and shape my future. If I need to summarize my journey to enter fine arts, it was based on having an architectural future during the last semester by trying to do better every day from the drawings he made. However, a new window opened in my life when I won the ceramics and glass department. The school I studied at, the professors I was with, the ceramic and plaster workshops I spent my time in, the artists I assisted and apprenticed in different cities, created a culture that absorbed me more and more every day throughout my education life. After I realized my desire to study in the department of interior architecture, which came from my childhood, by doing a minor, the incomplete parts of the two departments overlapped for me. Thus, I started to foresee what I could do after my education.
Although innovative forms of expression have entered our lives today with digital technology, I find it important to maintain the timeless and precious nature of ceramics by adhering to the traditional methods of production. For this reason, ceramics is still indispensable in my practice.
How does your local culture and environment influence your artistic work? Do the materials and techniques you use in your art find an echo in this interaction network?
Narrowing the perspective, a bit, I would like to define the area that constitutes my local culture and environment, where I spend all my time, only within the framework of our workshop with my partner and companion, designer Elif Aybüke Turgut. Since 2021, when we established this workshop, we have been continuing to produce and develop many things related to art and design. We have built our industrial ceramic projects on a brand called Yel Studios, which focuses on timeless and modern designs. We realize various projects created here with industrial ceramic production methods. At the same time, we realize Elif's research and production on bio ceramics and sustainability, which is her thesis topic, together in the workshop. In this way, she offers us new experiences with a new medium other than the ceramic shaping and industrial shaping techniques we already know. For this reason, all these studies and increasing knowledge create a wonderful playground for us. Everything created here is in an interaction that feeds each other. In this way, the most important factor that nourishes my art and my artistic thinking process is this creative environment we have created ourselves and this free spirit around it offers me a productive artistic production.
Ekin serisinden, Seramik, 26×30×49 cm
You say that you focus on creating multiple discourses using ceramics as a material and expanding the boundaries of the material through space, form, texture and depth. Is ceramics an indispensable material in your practice? Why?
In the eight years I have been experimenting with ceramics as a material, I have become more and more fascinated by the rich expressive opportunities it offers. When I consider ceramics as a material, there are many more projects I would like to produce with this medium. Through my artistic practice or through design, I want to utilize the potential of the material, push its limits and experiment with it.
Although innovative forms of expression have entered our lives today with digital technology, I find it important to maintain the timeless and precious nature of ceramics by adhering to the traditional methods of production. For this reason, ceramics is still indispensable in my practice.
The sculptures we saw at Mamut Limited belong to the Ekin series. I would like to talk about this series, you present an invisible space to the viewers. What is the story of this series?
The Ekin series aims to create deep meanings and emotional layers using the unique properties of ceramic material. The sculptures are formed by the combination of contrasting elements. Sometimes these contrasts create a harmony within the series, while other times they appear as independent and remarkable forms.
Each sculpture undergoes a continuous evolution through the influence of formal contrasts and the natural deformation of the material. This allows each work to evoke different emotions and thoughts that touch the spiritual depths of the viewer. The Ekin series takes the viewer on an abstract journey through evolving forms and opens the door to deep emotions and meanings expressed through the material.
Ekin serisinden, Seramik, 20×20 cm
For you, is producing a successful work about personal satisfaction or recognition from the art world? Why?
The inner satisfaction I get from the act of creation itself gives me more freedom to realize my ideas. Sometimes I transfer my thoughts to clay without filtering them, sometimes I try to reveal my own potential through clay with the inspiration I receive. In this experimental process, new emotions and feelings emerge. I act with this inner motivation.
Each sculpture undergoes a continuous evolution through the influence of formal contrasts and the natural deformation of the material. This allows each work to evoke different emotions and thoughts that touch the spiritual depths of the viewer. The Ekin series takes the viewer on an abstract journey through evolving forms and opens the door to deep emotions and meanings expressed through the material.
How do you balance the artistic and technical aspects of ceramics to achieve the results you want?
When I consider ceramics as a material, it offers me a free production space both artistically and technically thanks to its suitability for various production techniques. In technical terms, I try to improve myself by using the experimentation of production within this playground I mentioned. My improvement in technique allows me to apply my creativity in a wider framework. My relationship with the material allows me to push the boundaries as a result of the accumulation of technical knowledge and gives me self-confidence in voluminous works.
In the process of creating the Ekin series we see in the exhibition, I tried to establish a balance between technical and artistic expression while using an industrial production object such as plaster molding. I aimed for the parts that make up the whole in the series to evoke different emotions and characters in the audience. This experience emerged as a series in which I balanced the production realized with technical knowledge and artistic instinct.