How to materialize your loneliness by using an animal in somewhere concrete or technologic, 2019: a reading in seven lenses
Acrylic on canvas, 65 × 90 cm (25 ⅝ × 35 ⅜ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen.
At a Glance
On the brow of the enormous head at the left a third eye is opened, and from the two eyes below thick marks descend toward the cheeks. It resembles weeping, but whether what runs is liquid or a scratched-in scratch is unclear. The eye on the brow is, in the eastern tradition, the sign of inner sight, the one that stays open though the two eyes close; joined with a weeping face a strange contradiction arises, the faculty of sight multiplied but what it sees making it weep. The face is fixed like stone or wood, its expression unchanging, scrawled over from end to end; a head that carries a sign has turned into a wall written upon. The mouth is blue and closed, as if carried over to the writing that cannot be spoken.
Opposite it stands a second being, its body built of boxes and sticks, its head a black circle; its chest closed with railings, a curve like a smile on its face. There is no trace that it is alive, like an object made to relieve loneliness. It ties to the machine portraits in which Picabia, a century ago, painted people as so many devices, only the device here is not cold; the lines are drawn by hand, tremblingly, as if a machine were drawn from memory. The title speaks of using the animal in a technological place, the painting gives technology at the quality of a memory.
In the narrow strip between the two figures the word dog is written three times one below another, the letters shrinking as they descend, the last almost unreadable. The animal is not in the painting, its name is; the putting of a name in place of a thing most often says that it cannot be found. The dog is the most common cure for loneliness, but if in a city the number of dogs rises while neighbourliness falls, then something there does not add up. In a city of millions loneliness comes not from a lack of crowds; needing no one turns slowly into being needed by no one, and everyone stays behind their own door. At the right edge the word Milan descending vertically ties the loneliness to an address, and the 1994 at upper left is the artist's year of birth; the manner of keeping a record is preserved, the event to be recorded gone. Not a centimetre of the surface is empty, at least five rounds overlap; on the brow of the great face, though, a hard tip has been driven into the wet paint and the layer beneath scraped out to open it.
Form and Composition
Because there is nowhere left empty, the composition is set up not by the relation of figure and ground but by the oval face on the left and the gridded body on the right pressing against each other. While a narrow vertical corridor remains between the two units, one entirely curved and the other entirely upright, the eye circulates continuously and, because there is no void, does not rest.
There is nowhere left empty, the fill going all the way to the four edges. For this reason the composition is set up not by the relation of figure and ground but by two large units pressing against each other. On the left an oval face, on the right a mass with a rectangular body. Between them there is a narrow vertical corridor, its width a hand and descending uninterrupted from top to bottom. The inside of the corridor is filled with other units, that is, it is not void but only a finer texture.
The oval on the left covers the left half of the crop. Its top edge is a quarter of the way down from the top, and its lower tip stands below, leaving a hand's width of void. The units of the face, that is the two eyes, nose and mouth, are crammed into the lower two thirds of the oval; the forehead region has stayed wide, and there rings and short lines turn. The two eyes are not at the same height, the left one a finger's width higher. The outer line of the oval is thick and uninterrupted, the most continuous contour in the painting.
The mass on the right is geometric. Above a circle, below it a body with upright edges. The interior of the body is divided like a grid; vertical and horizontal bars leave four compartments, and the interiors of the compartments are hatched. Arms come out from its two sides, both breaking at the elbow and descending. Above the circle there is a crown of short vertical units. Because the edges of this mass are straight, it sets up a contrast with the oval on the left; one is entirely curved, the other entirely upright.
In the upper central region a radial unit stands. Short bars open outward from its centre, and short units droop below it in three rows. Its scale is about a quarter of the oval on the left. Its position is near the top edge and right between the two large units; it closes off the top of the corridor.
At the edges there are marks written with thin lines. In the upper left two rows, in the upper centre one row, in the upper right two rows, on the right edge a column arrayed from top to bottom, in the lower central region three separate clusters. All are of the same thickness and all stand on the topmost layer. In the lower band there is a series of short vertical bars, their intervals irregular and growing denser to the right along the bottom edge. In the lower left corner a star form stands, with a small roundness inside it. The scale hierarchy is three-tiered. The largest tier is the two main units, in the middle the radial form and the fills in the corridor, and in the smallest the letter-like marks and the bars of the lower band. The transition between the tiers is abrupt; there is nothing at an intermediate size. The eye's path begins from the eyes of the oval on the left, enters the corridor, rises and stops at the radial unit, drops into the circle on the right, and, following the gridded body downward, descends to the lower band. The circulation is continuous but rests nowhere, because there is no void.
Colour and Light
Because the yellow ground that lies beneath all the lines comes back out through every gap, the whole of the surface sits on a warm base. Because the light salmon face on the left is not balanced by the black, dark green and cobalt masses on the right, the right of the painting stays markedly heavy.
The yellow is the ground colour that lies beneath all the lines. Between lemon and cadmium, saturated and opaque; it comes back out through every gap, every interval. However many coats of colour come over it there is no place where the yellow ends, and so the whole of the surface sits on a warm base. On the left edge and in the upper band the yellow is at its cleanest; towards the right it is dirtied by the blue and green that ride over it and drops to mustard. The large face on the left is filled with salmon and flesh-like tones. Melon flesh, light coral, sand beige and pink; all soft, all lightened a little with white. This region is the calmest colour area of the surface. In the eyes there are orange and pink hatchings, the nose is lemon yellow, and the lips are blue and red set one over the other. The two pink strips descending down the cheek are paler than everything around them.
The right side is in an entirely different arrangement. There black, dark green and cobalt blue hold broad areas; the real darkness of the surface is gathered there. The interior of a body form is almost entirely black, with terracotta red and white lines thrown over it. This darkness is not balanced by the light face on the left, the right of the painting is markedly heavy. The red is scattered everywhere, but always as line. Thin, nervous, overlapping lines; some in the shape of letters, some like rays. Its colour wanders between terracotta and signal red. There is a blue of the same intensity too; in vertical bands it cuts the right half from end to end. Red and blue nowhere mix, they only cross and pass over one another.
The green stands in second place. It is inside the ring at the upper right, in the belly of the body and in the short strokes along the lower edge; between grass green and dark bottle green. Purple is the least used colour: a few vertical patches at the upper middle and a small dot on the nose of the face. The coolest place of the whole surface is those purple bands, and because they have stayed within the yellow they stand like holes. The white does its work in only two places. In the short hatchings inside the body on the right and at a few points of the lower band. In both it is laid with a dry brush, has not fully covered the dark beneath it and looks grey. There is no clean white on the surface at all; the lightest point is the lemon yellow on the nose of the face on the left.
To speak of light here is meaningless. The paint is so dense and so crowded that there is no space left for a shadow to sit. The brightness is wherever the yellow is, the darkness wherever the black is; no transition has been built between the two. In the lower left corner, in the middle of the black lines, there stands a small red circle, its interior filled and its edge thick.
Iconography, Myth and Title
While the third eye on the forehead points to inner sight, combined with the traces of tears the seeing has increased but what it sees makes it weep, and the person before the weeping icon is caught between bearing witness and being accused. The word dog written on top of itself turns backward into god, and while the repeated syllable sets up prayer, the city name binds loneliness to an address.
On the forehead of the enormous face on the left a third eye has opened. The two eyes below it are painted red and thick traces descend from within them; these strips reaching from the cheeks to the chin stand like the path of tears. The nose is yellow, the lips blue. On the right, on the other hand, there is a wholly different being: a round, dark head and beneath it a quadrilateral body; the inside of the body is divided into compartments, red bars crossing over it. In the middle a word written on top of itself repeats, and that word means dog. The writings stand as though scratched onto the ground.
The eye on the forehead is, in eastern traditions, the sign of inner sight; even if the two eyes that look at the world close, it stays open. Combined with the weeping face, a strange contradiction is set up: the faculty of seeing has increased, but what it sees makes it weep. The narrative of the weeping icon also comes into play here; certain images are believed to shed tears and that moment is counted a miracle. The face here stands fixed like stone or wood, its expression does not change, only the traces flow. The person standing before the weeping image is caught between bearing witness and being accused.
The figure on the right is like an idol wearing a mask or a machine. Its head a circle, its brows and eyes given inside with short lines; it seems to smile. Its body, on the other hand, is divided like a chest, a panel or a circuit board. The title speaks of using the animal in a concrete or technological place; the being on the right seems to carry exactly this fusion. The form of an animal and the form of a device in the same body. The body without a face and the face without a body stand opposite each other in this scene.
The word dog repeated in the middle opens several doors. The dog is the animal named as the most widespread cure for loneliness; it is taken into the home, spoken to, put in the place of a person. The letters of the same word, read backward, turn into the word god, and this play is often used in street writing. Its being written three times over makes it resemble a supplication or a raving. The single syllable repeated by the person left alone. A repeated syllable sets up both prayer and spell in the same manner.
The sun above also carries a face; its rays lined up around it and eyes in its centre. Giving the sun a face is one of the most widespread signs, extending from children's drawing to temple relief. On the right edge a city name written vertically stands. Giving the name of a place sets the scene onto a map; loneliness ceases to be an abstract state and is bound to an address. A loneliness that has an address ceases to be a portable state. At the lower left there is a small flower or star, with a red point at its centre, and the thin arms around it are irregular, their number not even either.
Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious
While the two thick traces descending down the cheeks resemble weeping, the third eye added to the forehead multiplies the organ of looking; someone who does not flee from seeing adds extra sight to themselves. While the hatchings passing over the skin turn the face into a scrawled-on surface, the word dog written three times fills the absence of a being not present in the painting.
Down the cheeks of the face on the left descend two thick traces. They begin below the eyes and reach the chin. It resembles weeping, but I am not sure the flowing thing is a liquid; it could also be a scraped, drawn-out mark. The eyes are opened wide, their insides filled with red lines. A third eye is drawn in the middle of the forehead as well. That is, on this face the organ of looking has been multiplied. Someone who does not flee from seeing but on the contrary adds extra sight to themselves. The eyebrows are drawn thick and straight, pressing on the eyes. The upper part of the face is heavier than the lower.
The face is scrawled over. Lines, hatchings, marks pass directly over the skin. To write over a face means to turn it into a surface. That is what happens here; a head that carries expression has become a wall scrawled on. The mouth is blue and closed. That there should be so many marks over a mouth that does not speak sets up a strange balance; it is as though the thing that cannot be said had been carried into writing. Below the chin there is a yellow area, separated from the rest of the face; the skin seems to end there.
On the right stands a second being. Its body is built from boxes and sticks, its chest region closed off with bars. Its head is round, with a smiling curve and two closed eyes on it; a mask or a screen. There is no sign that this figure is alive. It stands like an object made to relieve loneliness. It does not look at the weeping face opposite it, it has turned to face front with a fixed expression of contentment. A friend placed beside one; it neither answers nor looks. Horizontal sticks are lined up in the middle of its body, like a closed-off compartment. If there is something inside, it cannot be seen.
In the narrow strip between the two figures the same word is written three times, the three-letter word meaning dog repeated one below the other. The animal is not in the painting, its name is. Putting a thing's name in its place usually means that the thing could not be found. A child repeats a sound to fill an absence, keeps saying the same word. The repetition here is in that rhythm too. The letters grow smaller as they descend, the last one is almost illegible; the voice has gradually been turned down.
Other writings are scattered at the edges; a city name descends vertically on the right edge, in the upper left there is a year. Every centimetre of the surface is filled, not a single place left empty. The desire to fill says something in itself; the question of what would happen if emptiness remained has not even been asked. In the lower left corner there is a form resembling a star, with a red dot in its middle. A small sign left among all this crowd.
Society, Power and Technology
In the middle of the writing stand a lone face and a smiling machine; the modern city sets up an order in which people can live without needing one another, and not being dependent turns into no one having need of you. That the word dog is written three times and the device's regular false attention show that loneliness's remedy turns into a subscription.
Writing has been scrawled all over the surface. In one corner a city's name can be read, in another the word dog is repeated three times one below the other, in another it says woman. Overlapping words that look as though they were written on a wall. On the left there is a large face, its eyes opened wide, the corner of its mouth fallen down. On the right stands a machine whose body is built from boxes, its head round. These are, I suppose, the two things standing before someone left alone in the city; an animal and a device.
In a city of millions loneliness does not come from a lack of crowds. You stand shoulder to shoulder on the metro, you do not say a single word to anyone. There are fifteen flats in the same block, at how many of their doors can you knock. The modern city's achievement is here; it set up an order in which people can live without needing one another. Your parcel comes to the door, your food comes to the door. You are dependent on no one. And not being dependent turns, slowly, into no one having need of you. Asking the neighbour for salt has become a laughable memory; and yet that exchange of salt was a system, it created a very small debt and that debt kept people bound to one another. Now none of us has a debt to anyone, everyone behind his own door.
That the word dog has been written three times is worth dwelling on. To take in an animal means to set up a relationship in which you can give care without having to explain yourself to anyone. You speak, you expect no reply, no one judges you. This is not a bad thing. But if in a city the number of dogs rises and neighbourliness falls, then something there does not add up. Finding the thing that meets the need does not solve why the need arose. How many people in a city live alone is counted, how many people go a whole day without speaking is not counted.
On the face of the machine figure on the right there are two lines and a curve, as if it smiles. Devices always smile. The voice assistant calls you by your name, the app asks in the morning how you slept, the screen wishes you a happy birthday. An artificial attention, but a regular one; people's attention, meanwhile, is irregular and tiring. After a while a person chooses the easy one. This is the strangest side of loneliness too, its remedy always turns into a subscription. You sign up to therapy, you sign up to an app, you sign up to a pet-food order. All of them work, none of them seats you beside another person. The more the money you pay grows, the closer the question comes of whom you would talk to if you did not pay that money.
Part of the writing cannot be read, the letters have piled onto one another. City surfaces are like this too; no one reads what anyone else has written, everyone writes his own line over the top. A wall that no one reads is in fact a place where a great many people who want to speak have gathered. Beneath the eyes of the face on the left there are two long traces running downward, reaching as far as the chin.
Art History and Comparison
Picabia depicted people as devices, and the joke was born from coldness; the lines of the device here are tremulous, the machine drawn from memory, and technology is given at the quality of a memory. On the votive plaque an event was depicted and the date and name written beneath; the 1994 and Milano here are true, but there is no scene narrated, the manner of record preserved and the event gone.
A giant head covers the left half; a third eye drawn on its forehead, two lines coming down from its eyes, its mouth small and closed. In the right half there is a second being whose body resembles a shell and whose head resembles a black circle. Letters wander everywhere on the surface; in one place Milano, in one place the word köpek three times over, and at the upper left the numeral 1994 can be read. There is no area left empty.
The being on the right connects to the tradition of the machine portrait. A hundred years ago Picabia had depicted people as devices; he presented a spark plug as a portrait, and wrote the person's name beneath it. In those works the machine is clean, built like a technical drawing, and the joke is born precisely from this coldness. The device here is not cold; the lines inside the shell are drawn by hand, tremulous and irregular, as though a machine had been drawn from memory. The title speaks of a technological place, while the painting gives technology at the quality of a memory. The compartments in the middle of the shell resemble both a circuit diagram and the back of a tortoise; no decision has been made between the two.
Writing and painting interlocking to this degree is seen in post-eighties Italian painting too. In the Transavanguardia circle Cucchi and Chia filled the surface with mythological fragments, animals and writing; the crowd there was a search for a narrative turned towards the past, painting wanting to tell stories again. The writings on this canvas do not construct a story. A city name, a year, an animal name; words that do not connect to one another, resembling a list. Record has taken the place of narrative. The third eye on the forehead of the head at the left too seems to have been placed with the same logic; a sign taken from a belief system, but with no other element added beside it to recall that system.
The writing of the name and the date onto the painting is in fact a habit of folk painting. On votive plaques an event was depicted, and the date and the name of the votive's owner were written beneath; the writing guaranteed the truth of the painting. The 1994 here is the artist's year of birth, and Milano one of the cities he has lived in. The information is true, but there is no event narrated in the painting. The manner of record-keeping has been preserved, and the event to be recorded has disappeared.
Among the series' 2019 canvases this work is the clearest example of the desire to fill the surface from end to end. While in most works of the same year the figure stands alone on an empty ground, here nothing remains that could be called a ground, every inch full of marks. In the artist's last work, dated 2026, there is a similar fullness; the difference is that in that fullness there is no writing. The small flower shape at the lower left, meanwhile, stands alone amid all this crowd, connecting to nothing.
Material, Gesture and the Viewer's Experience
Not even a square centimetre of the surface is left empty; because the upper line does not lift the lower as it cuts it, you can read that at least five rounds have ridden over one another with drying awaited between them. The forehead and temples of the large face were driven into with a hard tip while the paint was wet, and the grooves opened by subtraction are left with the ridges of the dragged paint at their edges.
Not a single square centimetre of the surface is left empty. There are marks everywhere right up to the edges and beneath the marks stand other marks. Even in the upper left corner red hatchings have ridden over the yellow ground, and black curves over them. A fullness like this does not happen in a single sitting; the lower layers were left to dry, then returned to on top. I count at least five rounds and the order of the rounds reads clearly in some places, because as the upper line cuts the lower it does not lift it at all.
Most of the lines are broken. The paint there is very thick and the brush almost dry; it touched the crests of the canvas weave and skipped its hollows, so each line has become a series made of dots. This brokenness is the same in the orange ring around the large face, in the white hatchings inside the box on the right, and in the letters on the right edge. Among them there are a few lines that are, on the contrary, fluid; the red lines at the upper right ran liquid, unbroken and lifting the blue beneath a little. Two different consistencies were used in turn under the same hand.
The colour areas are laid at the very bottom and with the broadest brush. Yellow, blue and green lie as broad bands, riding over one another here and there, and marks of a wet meeting are left between them. Everything over these is made with finer tools. The difference of scale is obvious; the broadest band five centimetres, the finest line two millimetres. On the same surface at least four intermediate sizes move about between these two extremes.
The inside of the box on the right carries the thickest paint in the picture. The black there is full, it completely filled the weave of the canvas and left a matt mass. The green and white hatchings over it sit on top of this black, they do not go into it. The red contours, on the other hand, are the last and the most decided; each is a single move and their thickness changes with pressure. On the right edge of the box the red seeped downward a finger's length and stopped there; this is the only place that shows the paint was watered at that moment. The inside of the large face, meanwhile, was worked by subtraction too. Over the forehead and at the temples a hard tip was driven into the wet paint, the layer beneath was laid bare and those scratches were left so. Not addition but scraping; they stand on the surface as small grooves and at their edges are the small ridges of the dragged paint.
A cloth used crosswise, ninety centimetres wide. So much fullness makes looking from a distance difficult; looked at from two metres the surface trembles and the eye can find no calm to hold on to. As you come within a metre the large face and the box on the right separate out. Come down to thirty centimetres and both disappear, leaving behind the order of layers heaped one over another, and how long the picture took becomes clear only from that distance.
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