The painting of Seyyit Bozdoğan
Seyyit Bozdoğan is painter from passion. Certain topics never release him and therefor he painted many pictures variating the same topics, always with the goal of improving the expression and of getting his message every times more precise on the term using form and color . Many of its pictures were exposed already several times in Turkey as well as the Federal Republic of Germany and some of them also earned an award. To the 750th anniversary in Berlin, he got an order to create a picture cycle about 'Turkish People in Berlin', which is also exposed here. His main topics are the representation of microstructures in wide areas, with conflicting contrasts of color and areas in abstract pictures on the one hand; on the other hand in concrete pictures the working and living conditions in Turkey, Turkish people in Berlin and the environmental threat for human beings.
This last topic is treated vividly in particular in the two pictures "smokers" and "poison bottles". With elements, which recur both in the abstract as well as in the concrete pictures, he treats the topic "female bodies in the landscape" or "body landscapes" in different variations.
Characteristic of Seyyit Bozdoğan's work are from my view the following three points:
1. Combining abstract and concrete painting. Many body landscapes at the first glance appear abstract and only later on turn out to be the starting point of concrete objects. Nature and human bodies merge, however not harmoniously, but both of them threatened by the environmental destruction.
2. The significance of the respective living circumstances on the choice of topics: The topic of human life in nature under the conditions of industrial production is treated; on the one hand in the two large pictures of the "industrial face landscapes", on the other hand if, for example in "abstracted figure", landscapes and bodies again become one under the industrial fall out.
With the topic "Turkish people in Berlin" - fellow citizens with an own cultural background - the respective living circumstances are made aware, asking: Do we get along with one another? Is there mutual consideration and respect? This question is particularly brought up in the picture "Do you aim at getting my work?"
3. The pictures stimulate to compare: So for example in "industrial face landscapes": Here two profile views appear in one picture, the one moulded by industry and the other one at the edge, the natural one. Both profiles together result again in a single picture 'en face'. On the other hand one should compare two pictures next to each other: for example "women at the cotton harvest" in Turkey and "Turkish women in the streets of Berlin".
The pictures of Seyyit Bozdoğan thus have a bridging function:
- between abstract and concrete form of representation
- between different cultures
- between different topics, for example act painting and environmental threat.
The pictures of Seyyit depict thereby necessary challenges at us and obtain lots of material for thought: This is art in combination with a socially criticizing background. If you look accurately at it, you will notice the pictures to often have a double framework, such as views into an alienated environment, which show the more intensive effect, as knowledge is granted by them.
Characteristic for Seyyit Bozdoğan's art is the linkage of abstract and concrete painting. Bodies are interweaved with landscapes, which consist by themselves again of landscapes. The bodies in itselve are abstract microstructures in areas of conflict between coloured and areal sharpenings. By means of contrasting forms and colors the pictures take up current topics, such as the environmental threatening topic, however not in placard like, plain manner, but with artistic severity, which forces the viewer to pass beyond being provocated to argumentation and thoughtfulness. The areas of conflict between the apparent peace and the pulsating, but threatened life of its pictures, between dark, nightly and warm colors, between rounded and pointed forms pass on to the viewer and do not release him. It is not the painter's concern to gain a cheap effect, but a long lasting impact; he convinces by the consistency of its means of expression as a painter and by renouncing any playfulness.
Prof. Dr. Bernd Peter Lange, Osnabrück