Turkish Artist Volkan Diyaroglu - artmarketblog.com You may have read one of my previous posts praising the work of Turkish born artist Volkan Diyaroglu who has recently been included in the Saatchi Gallery top ten for the third time
of this. The West, contrary to what it believes, is not alone on the planet. The silence of the East has not worked well.
As far as the dripping technique goes, I’d like to say that I don’t use it as a technique per se. Pollock, for example, used it as a totally innovative technique but I wasn’t even aware of it when I started to paint like that. I simply paint on a canvas, on the floor and what you see from the outside as dripping, isn’t really dripping, they are accidents that happen when I am over the canvas. The paint drips a lot while I put on a colour. Of course I realize this afterwards but I don’t do this consciously to create an accident, the drips exist en my time and space, and since gravity also exists, they fall, and I accept them as they are. Many times I like the accidents more that I like what I unconsciously want to do. Lastly, it seems to me that Eastern and traditional art is purer even though this doesn’t mean anything. It’s neither better nor worse. My work at the same time also co-exists with both cultures. That’s normal, because I’ve been in both, in the West and in the East, I was born in the city of Istanbul which is the gateway been east and west.
T.C. I’d like to focus now on the content. It’s obvious that there are figurative references and a series of signs in your paintings. Can you say if a narrative analysis can be found in your work?
V.D. Yes, once in a while figures appear in the paintings. They appear to me in the same way as they do to you, but while I’m working. They’re like ghosts that want to say something but which I can’t understand very well. At the same time, my stains also are figures and the figures are stains as well. I believe that we must never forget that a painting is a painting and at the same time it is nothing of importance, like my ghost figures.
With respect to the analysis, of course one can do as one pleases. As I said before I also am a spectator after finishing the work, and, at times, I myself want to understand if there is something that they want to say to me while I look at them. It’s impossible to create a painting without a narrative element. It all depends on who looks at it and how. As I said before, my paintings might talk of all possibilities in an imprecise time and place. Can you imagine it? It’s immense, infinite. Because of this, I can’t even talk about my painting. You have to take painting very seriously, but at the same time you have to realize that there’s nothing serious about a painting. It’s like schizophrenia, as much for the spectator as for the creator. But why don’t we ever talk about a
