ISSUE 014 // SERAP GECÜ
“Rather than looking for some peace and calm, I think I usually search for newness.”
Where does the inspiration for your work stem from?
I don’t sit at my desk and start working unless I feel the urge to do it. I can maybe describe this urge as an effort to break the routine, to find excitement and satisfaction along with a feeling of newness. I love strolling through new ways of thinking as much as I love going for long walks in the city, feeling more alive as I encounter the fragments of life around me. I resonate with what Deleuze once said in an interview, “I believe in encounters (rencontres)... I’m not certain to have an encounter... I go out, I am “on the lookout” for encounters, wondering if there might be material for an encounter, in a film, in a painting, so it’s great.”.
How has your relationship with your art shifted since the pandemic?
During the first months of the pandemic I used to draw/paint almost every day. And then the pace slowed down gradually. I started a new drawing series called 'New Social' and a photography series called 'Home', comprising the photos I took in the house I live in, in search of seeing something new or different in what’s always been there. Both series are ongoing.
You dabble into a few different visual arts, do you feel like there is a connection between these artforms for you or do you consider them separate aspects of your artistic practice?
I think I consider them separate. I am not really sure if there is a strong connection between them. I love expressing myself through each of them, that’s all I know.
Considering that you’ve been creating some very covid-specific drawings during the first few months of 2020 we’d think that you find some peace and calm in your work. Is that a correct assumption?
Rather than looking for some peace and calm, I think I usually search for newness. Something to get me out of the reality and let me encounter the endless possibilities of the creative process.
When you illustrate, when do you know that a work is done? How do you decide when to walk away from something and consider it the end-result?
Walking away is usually easy for me. I don’t like being too busy with anything for a long time.