Index 2020 · Yiğit Özen

Index of paintings by Yiğit Özen, 2020

Yiğit Özen was born in 1994 in Istanbul and trained as an architect. The paintings date from 2018 onward and were made across Istanbul, Milan and Luxembourg. Alongside the paintings, Özen works as an XR and spatial web designer, and is the founder of decentralize design in Milan and Virtually Ever After in Luxembourg. That practice has been shown at Kunsthalle Zürich, the Royal Institution in London, Holy Art Gallery London and Art Basel Miami.

ciao capo, sono squalo, 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 65 × 90 cm (25 ⅝ × 35 ⅜ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen (decentralize*).

The pointed teeth ranged in the open mouth of the figure on the left stand as the one sharp edge within the softness of the rest of the painting. The title gives this mouth a sentence: hello boss, I am the shark. An Italian and overly cheerful greeting, the opening line of someone introducing himself as a predator.

ciao capo, sono squalo · Reading, in seven lenses

cellular spleens, 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 100 × 120 cm (39 ⅜ × 47 ¼ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen (decentralize*).

A bulky standing form occupies the centre, assembled from large overlapping ovals in dusky blue, mauve, pale pink, deep red and grey green, all edged in black. Its upper section is a cluster of small loops in red, yellow, green and blue, topped by green and black vertical strokes that fan out across the top edge. One thin arm reaches left to a small dark tip; a curved tubular shape hangs at the right. The form stands on a long dark red body with two black wheels along the bottom. Streaked grey and white fill the background. A black signature mark sits in the lower right corner.

Below lies a long, flat car, a thick black wheel at each end; it fills the whole breadth of the painting and a large body stands upon it. One foot sunk into the middle of the bodywork, the other braced on its edge, no balance, the stance liable to break at any moment.

cellular spleens · Reading, in seven lenses

cute but unemployed cartoon figure, 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 65 × 90 cm (25 ⅝ × 35 ⅜ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen (decentralize*).

Against a flat red ground that covers the whole surface, a single upright figure rises through the centre. Its head, in the upper area, turns to the left and opens a long jaw showing a row of white triangular teeth. Fanning strokes of black, green, blue and yellow spread from the top of the head. The torso is built from overlapping rounded ovals in grey green, olive, white and black, edged with blue and yellow. Two legs descend to the lower edge, and a limb on the right ends in green and yellow lobes. A black brush mark sits in the top left corner.

The red ground is a single flat layer from end to end, leaving nothing to fill the space around the figure. In the middle a single-coloured field and a creature standing upon it. The unemployment of the title matches precisely this emptiness, a figure with no role in a scene with no set.

cute but unemployed cartoon figure · Reading, in seven lenses

the family dinner after a night in jaïl, 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 65 × 90 cm (25 ⅝ × 35 ⅜ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen (decentralize*).

Green covers the entire ground, shifting from bright yellow green at the left to dark blue green near the edges. Three elongated pale forms occupy the field. The tallest, at the left, has a smooth rounded bald head with thin grey lines for features and a long white column of a body reaching the lower left corner. A smaller shape in the centre carries a curled white and lavender head above a dark navy shaft. The third, upper right, tapers downward through stacked blue green ovals. A teal curve crosses the lower centre. A dark blue mark sits at the top right.

Green has wrapped everything, three heads float within this colour; all three issue from the same mass and mix back into it. The one on the left is the lightest and most luminous, almost phosphorescent, its eye sockets hollowed.

the family dinner after a night in jaïl · Reading, in seven lenses

caprocorn sister: war, plague, earthquake, 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 65 × 90 cm (25 ⅝ × 35 ⅜ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen (decentralize*).

Against a black ground scored with fine vertical lines, three figures occupy the frame. At left a kneeling figure with a blue and green face, yellow patches around the eyes and an open red mouth rests one knee on a green oval. In the centre a taller standing figure leans a forearm on a thin vertical pole; its head is a plain white oval with grey hair, and its body is streaked with grey, red and blue. At right, a third figure stands with its back turned, its buttocks painted as concentric blue and red rings. A dark green box with yellow-green edges sits at lower centre.

In the middle of the lower half stands a dark green chest, its edges combed in lines, its lid closed; while everything around it is crooked, it is the one geometric unit. Three bodies are ranged around it and the title lists three catastrophes side by side: war, plague, earthquake.

caprocorn sister: war, plague, earthquake · Reading, in seven lenses

baby rights 101, 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 80 × 100 cm (31 ½ × 39 ⅜ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen (decentralize*).

Overlapping grey and black bodies spread across the full width against a pale blue-white ground. At left a figure with a white ovoid head, hollow eyes and a small dark mouth raises one hand with spread fingers. At right another ovoid white head with an open mouth tops a body whose two arms lift, fingers spread. Between them a large dark torso lies horizontally, legs extending to the lower right and an arm crossing the upper centre. Red outlined circles of varying size cluster at the middle around a red oval. Thin red diagonal lines run corner to corner. Black crosses mark several chests.

Right in the middle, between two dark bodies, a small infant is drawn with a thin red line: a body of rings come side by side, a pair of eyes, a single horizontal notch of a mouth. It stands like a diagram laid onto the flesh afterward, staying upon the paint without mixing into it.

baby rights 101 · Reading, in seven lenses

When the Darkness surrounds, be among those who burn the Great Fire, 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 65 × 90 cm (25 ⅝ × 35 ⅜ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen (decentralize*).

Pink and red rounded lobes build a single figure that fills most of a vertical canvas, streaked with white and orange. The rounded head carries two large oval eyes under heavy brows and a small mouth. One arm reaches to the right edge, ending in a splayed hand with separated fingers; the other drops along the left side. Both legs bend, and two long flat feet spread across the bottom. The ground behind is brushed in dark green, brown and black, with pale peach and a small blue patch at upper left and ochre at the right edge. White marks sit at lower right.

The hand at the end of the arm reaching to the right is left unable to become a fist, the fingers not quite closed; it could be about to strike, it could be reached out to hold something. The title says be one of those who light the great fire, but the palm is empty, nothing burning is visible in the painting.

When the Darkness surrounds, be among those who burn the Great Fire · Reading, in seven lenses

viperella, 2020

Acrylic on canvas, 50 × 70 cm (19 ⅝ × 27 ½ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen (decentralize*).

A dark band closes in from all four sides and leaves within it a light green rectangle between lemon and pistachio, setting up a second frame inside the painting. The figure is placed right in the middle of that bright field, standing in profile.

viperella · Reading, in seven lenses

bacchus 2, 2020

Acrylic on paper, 42 × 59.4 cm (16 ½ × 23 ⅜ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen (decentralize*).

One seated figure occupies the centre against a pale blue-white ground. Its large head, ringed by a thick black contour, is patched with blue, green, yellow and pink, with one eye at the right and a row of teeth in a wide mouth. Red and black looping strokes radiate from the head to the upper corners. The torso and legs are built from rounded units in ochre, pink, blue-grey, mauve and olive. At lower right a wide goblet carries a dark spiral in a red bowl, with blue rounded shapes and a blue hand beside it, above red fruit and red strokes along the bottom.

The inside of the stemmed goblet on the right opens not onto a drink but onto a dark pit spiralling down; the distance between drinking and being swallowed closes. The goblet is almost as large as the head, its thin long stem not looking able to carry a bowl of this breadth, ready to topple and no one holding it.

bacchus 2 · Reading, in seven lenses

The On-Top Ruler, 2020

Acrylic on thick paper, 29.7 × 42 cm (11 ¾ × 16 ½ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen (decentralize*).

Stacked rounded forms build a tall mass across the upper two thirds of bare white paper. A yellow-green dome caps the top, streaked with red, orange and black scribbles. Beneath it a black oval, a blue-grey disc and a blue oval sit toward the left, next to a yellow circle carrying black bar-like marks. Green and pale green curves fill the right side, edged with red and pink. At lower left a magenta oval encloses a pale yellow area with two dark dots and a dark mouth mark. Grey pencil strokes occupy the top right corner.

A tower is built of heads heaped one on another and the topmost is the largest of all; between them there is no shoulder or neck, the heads seated directly one upon another.

The On-Top Ruler · Reading, in seven lenses

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