Ingres's La Grande Odalisque

About Gazi Sansoy

The Secret of BeautyTurkish artist Gazi Sansoy has been fascinated by the portraits of the renaissance for many years.The elegant Simonetta Vespucci from Florence was seen as the embodiment of Italian beauty during this period, and was painted by some of the most famous artists of the era. Sandro Botticelli, for example, declared her to be his muse and glorified her as the Roman goddess Venus.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Secret of Beauty

Turkish artist Gazi Sansoy has been fascinated by the portraits of the renaissance for many years.
The elegant Simonetta Vespucci from Florence was seen as the embodiment of Italian beauty during this period, and was painted by some of the most famous artists of the era. Sandro Botticelli, for example, declared her to be his muse and glorified her as the Roman goddess Venus. Piero di Cosimo portrayed her as Cleopatra wearing a necklace of snakes. Her depiction was therefore more through idealistic images than realistic portraits, and she became the source of myth and fantasy. The Italians named here “Regina della belezza”: Queen of beauty.

Is beauty merely an illusion? Gazi Sansoy provokes the viewer with a deceptive transformation of our optical frames of reference. He replaces the feminine lines of his subject’s faces with powerful areas of colour. Only the form of the female figure remains, with its now secretive appearance. The solemnly clothed body provides the ideal cover as we search longingly for that perfect beauty.  

The result is a surface that can be used for plays on emotion and colour. We do not see what we are looking for, but rather what we dream of. Through their reproduction and colourful transformation, the well-known muses take on a new, heavily deceptive presence, one that is full of surprises. The image space is now free for someone else to occupy, someone the viewers can find themselves.

Gazi Sansoy describes himself as both a painter and “visitor” to his images. For his unique artistic experiment he has taken over an entire epoch, lacing it with new meaning. The palette of the 15th Century, styled in natural tones, meets the glaring colours of pop art. A time window emerges, through which we look deep into a vacuum of adventure.  

Christina Wendenburg

VITA

1968	Born in Istanbul, Turkey
1989-1993	Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Graphics, Marmara University, Turkey
1993-1996	Master degree
2007-2015	Founding and managing of Utopya Platform Art Gallery
Since 2009	Works in Kızıltoprak in his own atelier, Istanbul, Turkey