Exhibition Information

(출처=엘리제레갤러리)

(출처=엘리제레갤러리)

(출처=엘리제레갤러리)

(출처=엘리제레갤러리)

			"It’s been just over 13 years since I made my first diptych painting from the Exstacy Almond Blossom series, so I’d like to recollect how this continuous body of work originated. Also, I’ll reveal not just anecdotal stories but maybe also trace various long running themes that have been continuously connected throughout my practice as an artist and the cultural and philosophical lineage from which these ideas originate. Through this route I hope to further map out perhaps the artistic significance of this highly recognisable signature body of work."

Mustafa Hulusi was born in a Turkish Mediterranean Islamic heritage, yet raised within an Anglo-Saxon secular culture. Like many immigrants, he had to re-engineer his outlook into running different systems concurrently by devising a custom, self-made dual hybrid culture. He used this potentially detrimental mismatch and point of friction to an advantage by showing a new model of operation. 

He got his BA in Fine Art and Critical Studies from Goldsmiths College, London and his MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art, London. He also holds an MA in Critical Theory from Central St. Martins School of Art, London. Hulusi's practice has a continuous fascination with the notion of the ecstatic; a process that historically allows the individual to break free of their predetermined identity and to transform themselves through acts such as performativity, ritual, carnival, costume, music and dance.

The Expander emblem symbolizes the abstract notion of the infinite, and are named after an exhibition Hulusi was involved in organizing in 2005 at London's Royal Academy of Art. His job was to devise an eye-catching motif to display on street billboard posters to promote the exhibition. He, from a previous spell working in Graphic Design & Marketing, learnt some key insights into the nature viral visual communications, and ensured these techniques were employed in a thought provoking experimental way. The high profile yet mysterious nature of the Expander teaser posters became a much talked about topic within the intelligentsia cliques and the fashionable set within London’s art world circles in the summer of 2005. His important aim of earlier fascinations from within his practice had been achieved – how to shift ones perception through the use of context by crossing from outside to inside the gallery.

As for the etymology of the exhibition title, he recalled how in the early 1980’s home computers had input sockets in which the user could ‘plug-in’ cartridge devices called ‘Memory Expanders’. Does consequent question could be our desire or appetite for visual art today be a similar analogy? Is there a necessity to ‘plug in’ an increase of our thought-capacity thus enabling an imaginative leap into more complex ideas? Do we need to compute more deeply and to think more profoundly into the philosophical question of our existence? A substantial amount of time has passed since 2005 and though technology has intruded even overwhelmingly further into our everyday mundane lives, we still seemed to inhabit an evermore increasing technocratic system of social organisation. "I feel to be in a place where narrow ethical (and therefore artistic) parameters dictate the limits of human imagination. The repercussions of this on the production of culture are pronounced because there is a lack and inability to see beyond the prescribed thought horizon."

Just after the staging of the exhibition Expander, Hulusi suffered from a serious medical condition requiring an operation. This brush with mortality instilled in him more sensitivity to the fragility of life and he sought ways of interpreting this experience within his practice as a fine artist. Whilst staying at his parents’ family home in north London during recuperation period, it was impossible not to notice spring emerge from the blossom tree lined streets and within the well-kept front garden. It all appeared like an otherworldly paradise described in various monotheistic narratives. He studied and documented the roses, magnolias, and camellias bursting into full colorful bloom. This clichéd sense of the heavenly very much reminded him of island of Cyprus in spring, the island of his family’s origin. This was the beginning of the flower painting series.

The almond blossom represents the light in the Mediterranean, limited nature resources, and our fragile and beautiful lives. A figurative painting of a flower made photo-realist style taken from natural world is juxtaposed next to the Expander, the abstract notion of the infinite, an outward cosmic explosion from zero to infinity. Whilst time is entropic, our time on earth retains a beginning, a middle, and an end.