The Kaleidoscope of Painting
Ahmet Oran’s latest works are being infused with a new freedom, a web-like
expansion of the pictorial space. Instead of painterly colour fields – whether
monochrome or luminously atmospheric – he is creating graphically accentuated and
greatly expanding tableaux. These reticulated structures encroach upon the
neighbouring canvases, forming composite works in horizontal alignment. In the
1990s and 2000s, Oran was known for his more hermetic, object-type paintings.
These days the artist is liberating and inscribing himself onto the canvas using sticks
and broad scrapers. He is in the midst of the painting, entangling himself in a web of
radiating lines. We are reminded of Jackson Pollock’s all-over drip paintings in
monumental format. The dripping paint forms runnels on the canvas – whether solidly
leaden or transparently fluid like drawing ink. The confluence of trickling and spilt
trails forms atmospheric meshes, stellar cosmoses, or abstract boscage with
moments evoking real space and nature. The character of the field is the determining
factor – the expansion of the canvas as painterly environment, in which we as well as
the artist are enclosed. Colour milieus that pulsate, that breathe, capturing us in their
net. While Pollock’s structures are based on arrangements of aleatory drippings,
Oran’s web formation is somewhat more constructivist and systematic. He disciplines
the free gesture in favour of grid-based arrangements on the picture plane.
Structured line meets spontaneous trail, when the artist scrapes lines into the finely
painted grounding of the picture, thus exposing the paint layers underneath. The
painting gains extra stability and compactness, evoking the shimmering, floating
chaos in distinct relief, like undergrowth in dazzling sunshine. Oran absorbs two
major aspects of abstract painting: first, the free gesture of the Informel from de
Kooning and Pollock; second, the geometric permutation of lines in grid-pattern
structures from Piet Mondrian to Agnes Martin and Brice Marden. Both elements are
bound to the factual plane of the panel painting, eschewing any classically illusionist
character or hint of the mimesis of figuration. But Oran disrupts the abstract and
planar purity by underlying these graphic textures with alluring grounding – as he had
already done in his previous paintings. Sensuously shimmering colours in
conjunction with the scratched lines generate prismatic refractions: sensuous
paintings with a kaleidoscope effect. This spectacular visual experience continues in
paintings structured by vertical or horizontal stripes. Here, too, Oran scrapes away
the paint substance in his usual manner, flaying the epidermis of the painting, so to
speak. Garish spots of colour flicker through the gashes like flashes of forest fires or
storm hubs depicted on a weather map. The abstract image becomes a spectacular
visual scenario with a captivating allure. This form of abstract painting is a core
example of post-modern abstraction, which was introduced in the mid-1970s with
Gerhard Richter’s abstract paintings. Instead of the ascetic, monochrome paintings of
Ad Reinhardt, Robert Ryman and Brice Marden, or other minimalist trends
approaching the zero point, there is a resurgence of sensuous coloration,
tempestuous gesture and intoxicating colour fields. After his Grauen Bilder [Grey
Paintings], Richter dipped his brush once more into the paint tub, widened the colour
spectrum until it was almost visually irritating – a fireworks display of “uber-beautiful”
images. His retinue included Philip Taaffe and Ross Bleckner, who focused on the
schöner Schein, the “surface beauty” of painting using ornamental floral forms. In this
context, Oran makes a fascinatingly modern contribution to the art of painting.