
Hera Büyüktaşcıyan
Courtesy of the Artist & Galerist
The sculptural collages titled Icons for Tired Skin explore the notion of skin and wound through the morphology of stone and the surface tension within iconographic representations in Byzantine monumental architecture in Istanbul. While many snippets of these scenes highlight the contrast between power and defeat, petrification and vulnerability, immortality and perishability, they pause questions on the notion of temporality and earthliness through the agency of image as well what these surfaces themselves witness parallel to what they represent - through damages on their surfaces caused by political power shifts and xenophobia, that has deconstructed these imagery as the reminder of the unwanted. The sculpted scars on the surface of the carpets, resonate with the agency of architectural surfaces as witnesses to history and destructive power - while they associate with the morphology of skin as an accumulative source where the daily records and tensions are sealed within. The icon as an object that suggests to reveal the invisible, here equally functions as an instrument of sight that unfolds the forgotten.
Provenance
The ArtistExhibitions
2025, The Volcano Lover, Galerist, Istanbul, Turkey2024, Flying too Close to the Sun, Art Space Pythagorion, Schwartz Foundation, Samos, Greece