Marcus Graf: Dear Günnur, at PG-Artworks you show a new series, which I see as a continuation, but also radicalisation of your previous work. So, let us start talking about the new series. Could you please introduce it by discussing its formal and contentual/conceptual issues?
 
Günnur Özsoy: Last summer, while I was lying at the seaside enjoying myself, I suddenly wanted to find someone who poured lead and I began to look for someone that could do it. To my surprise, Emine, whom I know and like very much, knows how to pour lead. So, I asked her both to pour lead for me, and also pass this ability to me. When she was alive, my mother regularly had someone pour lead for her. My wish was to continue my mother’s rituals, and to learn lead pouring as a ritual, and pour lead for those who would ask for it.
 
As a sculptor, I certainly find all materials attractive. I always think that one day I might make use of all the materials I have seen. Naturally, I began to look at lead in this manner. My initial idea was to pour lead for people who would ask for it, and document it via video, and then to make an installation with the poured lead. However, as usual, with my excited and hasty attitude I began to pour lead in the studio by myself. This process was quite enjoyable. During the act of pouring I learned more about the material. Melting very quickly and also freezing very quickly, lead’s acquiring new forms rapidly as such, was very exciting for me. The lead I poured onto a small pedestal was mostly quite fragile. When I poured  the lead I melted in a ladle or spoon, sometimes I tried to manipulate them at a certain degree. This speed and freshness gave me the feeling as if I were making watercolour pictures. Speed, freshness and vitality...
 
M.G.: Coincidence is one of the fundamental issues in your current working process, or better, its pre-work and design is strongly based on chance and unknown formal outcomes.
 
G.Ö.: Speed, freshness and the surprises of the final forms that lead pourings acquired... And I began to study the poured lead.
 
These little pieces of poured lead made me feel as if I were tracing the track of some archaic things. They were like the beginnings of some sort of vital things. Owing to their amorphous and organic forms, they were also siblings with the sculpture language I created. At the end of this process, I began to make the sculptures for this exhibition. The works in this new series are, as always, organic in terms of their form. Their maximum dimensions are over two metres. They are made of polyester. Their colours are lead grey, blackish purple, petroleum green and white. The dimensions of the sculptures are exaggeratedly large when contrasted with the lead pourings I made. Fluidity during the process of pouring lead is apparent. The fragility of lead reveals itself where forms got thinner in places. Their most distinctive feature is the abundance of empty spots. Because, during pouring, lead bursts and creates its own gaps.
 
M.G.: You described very well the creation process of the lead object, where coincidence and chance play fundamental roles. In your work though, the sculptures that you create are formally and conceptually consciously made in a very careful and slow process. Could you please describe your artistic process, the way you consider, design, and execute your sculptures?
 
G.Ö.: Chance was in effect during the formation of lead objects, however as an artist who is familiar with materials, I began this work with the awareness that lead is a metal which melts and freezes very quickly. Therefore I consider chance in this matter rather as my guesses that turned out to be correct. I have a disposition that is generally ready for new experiences, or open to distrupt my usual routine. It might sound like arrogance, but I consider myself as skilful at creating and recognising opportunities on my own. My intuitions are very strong, that is why I always approach my intuitions positively. While imagining during the process of thinking and formation, I always start work with positive emotions. I move forward with excitement, while thinking that I will have a good adventure, that I will have fun, and although there might be some mishaps I will overcome them and learn new things. The forms of my sculptures are always organic. I am very persistent and determined about these forms. I see them as parts of the universe and life.
 
M.G.: So, in the end, this series is somehow between coincidence and plan, as well as the conscious and unconscious.
 
G.Ö.: I think that with these organic forms I have created a language of my own.  When I thought of how these forms entered into my life, I realised that they originated in the scribblings on paper I used to make with pencil during my childhood. Of course I was drawing like any other kid. But these drawings were made mainly to please others. The drawings I did for myself were scribblings consisting of lots of curved lines. The sheets of paper which I filled with curvilinear, oblique lines felt like a kind of never-ending game to me, I used to feel as if I were in Alice’s wonderland going through endless doors with pleasure and excitement. The forms of my jewellery, which were my earliest three-dimensional works, were again apparently organic. During the production processes of some geometric forms I tried in my jewellery work, I felt stuck inside limits, and I thought it was not for me. Although the materials I use in my sculptures, or the themes which I focus on changes, my forms always belong to the organic world. The main thing for me is the process during which I make a sculpture. I can sincerely say without any exaggeration: This process is so profound that even trying to find ready words to describe this profoundness feels like oversimplifying all the journeys I have made. All in all, I make a sculpture and strive to make it in the best way I can.
 
M.G.: Are the sculptures in the exhibition copies or reproductions of the small lead objects? If not, how do you decide what to erase or what to add?
 
G.Ö.: My sculptures in this exhibition and the poured lead are related to each other in terms of the concept that emerged through depiction of my thoughts, rather than formally. To put it more clearly, the important thing is not how the poured lead and sculptures resemble to each other or not. The main issue is the transformation of the abstract thoughts that were forming in my mind while I was pouring lead. On the whole, it is something I have lived or experienced. So it belongs to me... However, the sculptures stand in the open. It is up to the viewers how they will connect with them or how they will perceive them. I do my sculptures. How they are understood afterwards is not a process about me.
 
M.G.: Colour is an important aspect of your sculptures. Not only the forms but also the colours of the sculptures are outstanding. What role does colour have in your work in general, and especially in this series?
 
G.Ö.: For the sculptures in this exhibition, I also used colours which I had not used until now. One of them is (out of sheer creativity:)) lead grey. The colour lead grey is the identical twin of graphite powder in my opinion.
 
Graphite powder is widely used in the sand casting method. Therefore, it is a material with which I worked intensively during the casting of my bronze and aluminium sculptures. At that time I liked graphite powder and making moulds with sand so much so that I began making sculptures directly by carving them out of sand. In other words, I was first making the negatives of my works, not the positives. Besides facilitating the work with sand, graphite powder also impressed me greatly in terms of its brightness and profundity. Because of this, I also published the photographs of my sand moulds in the catalogue of one of my exhibitions which consisted of aliminium cast sculptures. By this way, I could share some tips, though small, about the process during the formation stage of work, which is very precious for me. From those days until today, I have carefully kept graphite powder in a corner of my studio as if it were some magic powder. I cannot properly describe how happy I was when I found the lead grey paint for this exhibition which would give the impression of graphite. While I was expecting the unexpected, among thousands of colours and paint brands, I found the colour I had been dreaming of.
 
Another colour I used for the first time in this exhibition is petroleum green. When you start the story by lead pouring, the leading actor becomes lead. Lead is a material which I have in my mind as being deadly. Because of this, I used a gas mask while pouring lead. (Unfortunately I had to use this mask also in the streets. I guess we were affected by the evil eye and we were on the air.) Owing to the fact that lead is deadly, and that the war for petroleum is deadly, these two are kindred, like two relatives with moustaches and beards, in the way I perceive them.
 
Thinking about lead and petroleum, I recalled an expression that I heard from my parents while I was a child. Ziftin peki!... [Ziftin pekini yesin: Turkish idiom used as a curse meaning the addressed person eats solid pitch.] Lead, petroleum, pitch... These three new colours covered my sculptures in this way. Along with them, there are also white sculptures in the exhibition, which are closest to my abstract world. All in all, I created numerous sculptures in colour. Features of form, space where the sculptures will be displayed, as well as the emotions and events I experienced affected my choice of colour. Those who follow my work closely say that especially the colours red, maroon and aubergine purple become my sculptures.
 
M.G.: You work with polyester. Why?
 
G.Ö.: As you know, I have worked with various materials so far. My earliest works consisted of bronze and aluminium cast sculptures. Because of economic reasons, the dimensions of these sculptures were around fifty centimetres at most. However, I wanted to make larger scale works. Working with polyester also enabled me financially to produce sculptures in dimensions that I dreamed of. Thereby I began making large-scale works as long as my budget allowed me to do so (thanks polyester).
 
I think that the surfaces of my sculptures give personality to the mass I form. Likewise, in my opinion, every material has got a personality. I even see the auras of materials. When my first large-scale works where I used polyester took form, I said “hurray!”. But this material was such an artificial thing that it did not give me any profundity, except that it enabled me to make large-scale works. For this reason colour entered my sculptures. Hence owing to the profundity of colours, together with the different light reflected from each colour, my polyester sculptures were able to form their own auras. My polyester works are technically hollow. I became fully aware of this state of hollowness when I brought a suitcase full of sculptures to St. Petersburg, and encountered their image on X-ray. With the security guard, I acknowledged the fact that the masses I formed consisted of a thin line or a crust. When I think of the cross section of the globe, lots of layered formations appear before my eyes. However, in the cross section of my polyester sculptures there is only a thin line or a crust; both the inside and the outside is empty. For this reason, polyester appears among the gaps sometimes as a conductor, and at others, as an intervening cross section. The paint I use in my polyester works always reinforces this feeling. Owing to its permeability, I regard this material as highly suitable for many concepts.
 
M.G.: You speak about emptiness and blank spots inside the original lead objects and the later sculptures. What role does emptiness play conceptually and formally in your work?
 
G.Ö.: Yes, I use the term emptiness, or holes, for both of them. Because these terms are necessary in order to express visual things. Besides the expression of a certain form, there are also holes and emptiness as a description of my thought. I mentioned earlier that during the production stage the experiences I derived from my past, and my memories step in. Void: When I was a child, enchanted by the mysterious glitters of the stars every night, I used to make up scenarios about the sky and the stars, then I would tell them to my friends, and we would act in them together. I was so obsessed with it that today when I meet a friend of mine from those days, s/he starts talking about these scenarios. I used to think that the stars were hung on the sky, but not with a thread or something similar, rather I imagined that they existed inside some powerful, invisible things, actually I still believe in the same dreams. As coming closer to the light of the stars is only possible with a deep void, likewise I imagine my sculptures in emptiness. Therefore, I have got many sculptures hanging from the ceiling that evoke the feeling that they are resisting gravity. My other experience of the void is when I’m scuba diving. For me, staying underwater while swimming is similar to experiencing what it is like to be hanging in the void. While you are scuba diving, many changes occur in your body due to staying under pressure. The gaps in the sculptures indicate such a transformation. The sculptures may turn into the gaps inside them, or the gaps may turn into sculptures. I consider the gaps in my sculptures also as sculptures. I can explain this situation through a glimmering rainbow, which looks like a surprisingly huge solid mass, but, in fact, is incorporeal. The state of emptiness and fullness pertaining to my sculptures points at the harmonious balance between yin and yang, while at the same time they evoke the feeling that these can also transform into each other.
 
M.G.: You could create editions, but every sculpture is unique. Why?
 
G.Ö.: I am indeed open to the idea of making works in editions. I also made sculptures in three editions a while ago. However, now that the dimensions of my works in recent years have grown bigger, I make unique sculptures. Because the moulds and sculptures occupy so much space, it is not easy for my to keep them in my studio.
 
M.G.: Out of every new series, the artist gets a new "learning outcome" regarding either form or content. So, how do you see the role of this current series for your work? What do you or did you learn?
 
G.Ö.: What have I learned from this series in terms of form and content: This new series’s greatest contribution to me is this very interview we have done together. Actually, I have never thought about what I learned from the sculptures I made. But while I was explaining to you what I had done so far, focusing on and thinking about myself and my works certainly improved me. New projects with regard to void and light sprouted in my mind during our conversations. Thank you, Marcus.