- November 14 Interview
Today I am thankful to sit down with Feyzi Kutay Tufekci (b.2000) a Turkish American artist; born and raised in Istanbul. Previously earning the Distinguished Scholars Scholarship during his attendance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Kutay draws his inspiration from Turkish Literature, Religious Symbolism and Calligraphy. Some themes have direct correlation with nostalgia.
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your art and your process of translating these nostalgic memories into abstract collage?
I usually start my paintings by staining them, so I have an organic guide to follow and build over. I’m interested in the abstraction that happens during the process of recovering previous layers by painting new ones on top.
It’s a process of negative painting, as in carving through the built-up layers of paint with the removal of the stencil. Painting around the subject instead of painting over it creates a tension on the surface of the paintings. I try to cluster, distress, and push in different patterns that are inspired by everyday objects, textures, and graphics.
I feed off of the idea of everything having a history, stress, scars, and trauma. Every mark could be covered or removed, but during the painting/treatment process what is left behind from the trauma, removal of the stencil, shapes the history of the final image. Control is important to scaffold an image but to break that unity you have to let it go and let the image expand on its own will.
Every mark has a consequence and could be a stepping stone for what’s to come next. Just like every choice we make shapes our path and purpose in life.
During quarantine, me and my dad would watch episodes of Pimp My Ride and Count’s Kustoms together. I was amazed by the tricks these airbrush artists were pulling on a car, which got me into airbrushing. There was a vast culture of stylization I wasn’t aware of prior to Covid. I started to treat my painting surfaces with similar applications that are used in car painting.
I was amazed by the tricks these airbrush artists were pulling on a car, which got me into airbrushing. There was a vast culture of stylization I wasn’t aware of prior to Covid. I started to treat my painting surfaces with similar applications that are used in car painting.
I was trying to mimic what I’ve learned from watching the shows; using various gel mediums, varnishes, epoxy, and resin. Some of my work in my undergraduate years was an homage to my father’s car, paying respect to him and his creation. I made six paintings as a series and one of them was a tondo panel that was painted as a headlight. It had a white silkscreen print of my dad and I to imitate the light that was seeping through the headlight.
H346L19H7 70N60 was one of the two paintings I had for my undergraduate show. My family was in Turkey and couldn’t make it to the show, but I still wanted to show my dad what I’ve been practicing over the years.
Painting his car this summer was a milestone experience in my painting practice. I was able to paint the car my dad had built, raced in, and inspired me with my whole life.
Embracing culture and approaching inspirations from Turkish Literature calligraphy; can you expand on some of your inspirations.
I have always been interested in Islamic Calligraphy, because I find the flow of the letters so natural but controlled at the same time. I think they are being free and serving a purpose for abstraction. Arabic letters have a visual rhythm in the way they are laid on paper.
Not being able to read these letters but being exposed to it everyday by seeing signs, posters, etc. has created a patterning for my eye. Whenever I look at Islamic Calligraphy I think about abstraction, I perceive this unfamiliar language as a familiar pattern that gives me peace. I find it meditative to get lost in words and not even reading them, by just looking at them you can see the rhythm they create.
It’s sort of a visual tide that your eye follows, and recognizes as a pattern. The abstraction that happens within calligraphy could be also discussed under the lens of literature and poetry.
I have recently discovered an amazing artist, Rosaire Appel. I was browsing through some artists’ books until I saw the title “wordless (poems)”, it got my attention. As I was flipping through the book I realized how abstract these marks were; every page has gone through a systematic process that gives them structure in form.
The titles of your artworks can be seen as cryptic; an intriguing way of inviting the viewer into viewing your perspective. Can you tell us more?
If certain methodologies are applied, words and phrases tend to get abstract. Leet, also known as “l33t” is a system of modified spelling. It’s a writing method that is used to replace letters with numbers to create a resemblance of a word.
I use leet in my titles just because it creates another conversation on how far can abstraction be pushed, not just on the image but also in the title. As an example; “Let me get some traction” can be coded as L37 M3 937 50M3 7R4C710N, replacing certain letters with numbers that resemble them. After some time these forms start becoming visual patterns more than conveyors of information.