“Mirror Mirror On The Wall…”

“Mirror Mirror on the Wall…”

20 silkscreen prints on oval hand
cut mirrors, 20 silicon handmade
oval white frames 1 antique
framed mirror

Each 17.5 x 12 cm.
2012

What is beauty? What makes an art
object beautiful? What makes a person
beautiful? Is it proportion, fitting the norm,
being stylish, adhering to aesthetic canons?
Whatever the answer, this is a question that
plagues us throughout life both as artists
and as humans. Mythological stories and
fairytales transmit messages about the
importance of beauty to children. Being
particularly true for maturing females,
concepts of narcissism and vanity lose
their negative connotations, as media,
peer pressure, and the market economy
continue to promote the physically beautiful
icon not only as a want, but also as a need.
Contemporary individuals are willing to spend
excessive amounts for cosmetics and undergo
serious surgical procedures hoping to fit into
the norm, hoping to remove the traces of lived
life, hoping to forget the inevitability of death. 
For this work, the artist transformed discarded
plastic surgeon’s slides found in an Istanbul
flea market into Warhol inspired silkscreen
images printed in tones of black and gray on
a series of reflective hand cut small oval mirrors.
While retaining the potential of reproducibility,
the individually printed images displayed in
hand made white frames appear standardized
but are not. By arranging the small oval mirrors
into an imperfect square on the wall, the
artist attempted to negate the Modernistic grid
symbol while an almost beautiful, seemingly
innocent series of mirrors depict one
dimension of a contemporary tragedy.
To remind spectators of their position in this
drama, the artist allows their reflections to
mingle with the silkscreen images on the mirrors
and also encourages them to gaze into the
prototype “Snow White” mirror hung alone
on the adjacent wall.