The Silence of the Horses
İz is Turkish for trace.
There were horses, running… In a silent vanishing, only their traces remained.
This work is an artistic expression of the sharp rupture between the ancient light of nature and the dull grey of industry.
On one side of the canvas, horses run freely among the colours of nature; on the other, the cold invasion of concrete silences the earth.
In parallel with the exhibition’s “Firefly” metaphor, the horses here are the purest bearers of ecological memory. Yet in the grey field where concrete reigns, living bodies have been replaced by cold traces and metallic silence. Industrial destruction has not only narrowed the freedom of living beings; it has turned them into mere traces within their own habitats.
Built up through brushstroke and colour, the concrete and metallic textures call on the viewer to face the climate crisis and the loss of ecosystems.
Questioning nature’s fading light and its curtailed freedoms through the traces of horses, the work asks what legacy we will leave to the generations to come: a living nature, or memories imprisoned in concrete?
As life withdraws before the advance of concrete, only a trace remains: mute, grey, irreversible. And sadly, the ones who did this are us.
In Turkish: geriye sadece bir İZ kalır … bunu yapan da bİZ.
The word for trace, iz, lives inside the word for us, biz.
Koşan atlar vardı… Sessiz bir yok oluşta sadece “İZ”leri kaldı.
Atların Sessizliği
Bu eser, doğanın kadim ışığı ile endüstrinin donuk griliği arasındaki keskin kırılmanın sanatsal bir ifadesidir.
Tuvalde, bir yanda doğanın renkleri içinde özgürce koşan atlar, diğer yanda ise toprağı susturan betonun soğuk istilası yer almaktadır.
Serginin “Ateş Böceği” metaforuna paralel olarak, buradaki atlar ekolojik belleğin en saf temsilcileridir. Ancak betonun hüküm sürdüğü gri alanda, yaşayan bedenlerin yerini sadece soğuk izler ve metalik sessizlik almıştır. Endüstriyel tahribat, canlıların özgürlük alanlarını kısıtlamakla kalmamış, onları kendi yaşam alanlarında birer “İZ”e dönüştürmüştür.
Beton ve metalik efektlerin fırça darbeleri ve renklerle verdiği etki, izleyiciyi iklim krizi ve ekosistem kaybıyla yüzleşmeye çağırır.
Bu çalışma, doğanın kaybolan ışığını ve kısıtlanan özgürlüklerini “at izleri” üzerinden sorgulayarak, gelecek nesillere bırakılacak mirasın ne olacağını sormaktadır: Canlı bir tabiat mı, yoksa betonun içine hapsolmuş hatıralar mı?
Betonun istilasında yaşam çekilirken geriye sadece bir İZ kalır; dilsiz, gri, geri dönülemez ve maalesef bunu yapan da bİZ.
Belgin Özdağ
The horse from the canvas, lifted into space. Half of its body is smooth and white, still alive; the other half has turned dark and engraved, as if the grey of the painting were already climbing through it. The sculpture carries the work’s rupture into a single leaping body.
Up close, the canvas becomes terrain. On a ground of natural jute, sand-laden layers are pushed, scraped and built up into ridges and craters; the horses are drawn into and over this ground in quick, calligraphic strokes. On one side they still run in colour. On the other, the relief hardens into grey, and the horses sink into it until only their outlines remain.
“For the canvas I deliberately chose natural jute, and as far as I could, I chose all the materials from nature. I used natural sand, because I wanted to capture a three-dimensional, concrete-like effect.”Belgin Özdağ
Over a career of more than twenty years, Belgin Özdağ has worked both as an art educator and as a visual artist. Bringing together her academic training at Selçuk University and many years of teaching in some of Türkiye’s major cultural centres, she explores the points where emotion and movement meet. She currently works in her private studio in Ankara.
Horses and dancing figures recur across her canvases and sculptures, set down in fast, calligraphic strokes that read less as portraits of bodies than as the traces their motion leaves behind. In her recent work the surface itself becomes terrain: natural jute and sand built into thick, three-dimensional relief, across which small herds gallop like lines drawn through space.
1998: B.A., Fine Arts Education (Painting), Selçuk University, Konya, Türkiye
Current: Visual arts instructor, Polatlı Public Education Center, Ankara
Current: Independent artist, private studio, Ankara
Previously: Visual arts teacher in Konya, Istanbul, Bursa and Ankara
HayAT: the rhythm and traces of the soul
In Turkish, hayat means life, and hidden inside it is at: the horse, and also the imperative “cast off, let go”.
“HayAT” is an endless dance drawn on the canvas of existence.
As we fit a whole lifetime into the brief span of time we are given, each of us is living the story that is ours to live. I count myself truly fortunate to have felt, with my whole being, all the beauty of this ancient land where I was born.
My soul still echoes inside that fairytale universe: the childhood I grew up in and carried, growing within me, all the way to Mount Qaf, and the ancient melody that never falls silent in my heart and ears. Among endless plains and vast mountains where earth meets sky, I ran through my life with great joy. I am grateful to have been given the ability to express that joy through colour and form.
Science tells us that in the endless darkness we call space, planets bend and curve the void as they move, leaving traces behind them and shaping all that comes after. Art is exactly the same.
Dance is the reflection of our imagination in the universe. AT, the horse, prepares the sacred ground on which our creativity can run free.
Every soul has the right to create its own dance, without breaking from tradition, yet building a language that is new and its own. Sometimes, walking down a road, we feel the urge to dance; perhaps we are sensing the abstract trace, the frequency, left by a person, a horse, a bird, even a flower that passed that way before us.
Dance is the bodily language of joy, sorrow, anger and love. AT is an invitation to let all of these feelings go free: to make the rhythm of our soul visible, unafraid to share what we feel.
I invite you to feel the frequency reflected in these works, made with my whole being and soul, and to join in this shared dance.
“HayAT”, varoluşun tuvaline çizilmiş sonsuz bir danstır.
Bize ayrılan o kısacık zaman dilimine koca bir ömrü sığdırırken, aslında her birimiz payımıza düşen hikâyeyi yaşıyoruz. Doğduğum bu kadim coğrafyanın tüm güzelliklerini benliğimle hissedebildiğim için kendimi çok şanslı addediyorum.
Ruhum hâlâ o masalsı evrenin içinde yankılanıyor… Büyüdüğüm ve içimde büyüterek Kaf Dağı’na ulaştırdığım o çocukluk, kalbimde ve kulağımda hiç susmayan o kadim ezgi… Uçsuz bucaksız ovaların, yerle göğün birleştiği devasa dağların arasında, hayATımı büyük bir coşkuyla koşturdum. Bu coşkuyu renklerle ve formlarla ifade edebilme yetisiyle ödüllendirildiğim için minnettarım.
Bilim der ki; uzay denilen o sonsuz karanlıkta gezegenler hareket ettikçe, boşluğu eğip bükerek ardında izler bırakır ve kendinden sonra gelenleri etkiler. Sanat da tam olarak böyledir.
Dans, hayal gücümüzün evrendeki yansımasıdır. AT, yaratıcılığımızı özgürce serbest bırakmamız için bize o kutsal zemini hazırlar.
Her ruh, kendi dansını yaratma hakkına sahiptir. Gelenekten kopmadan ama yenilikçi ve özgün bir dil inşa ederek… Bazen yolda yürürken içimizden dans etmek gelir; belki de daha önce oradan geçen bir insanın, bir atın, bir kuşun, hatta bir çiçeğin bıraktığı o soyut izi, o frekansı hissederiz.
Dans; sevincin, hüznün, öfkenin ve aşkın bedensel dilidir. AT ise, tüm bu duyguları serbest bırakmaya bir davettir. Hislerimizi paylaşmaktan korkmadan, ruhumuzun ritmini görünür kılmaktır.
Sizleri; tüm benliğimle ve ruhumla işlediğim bu eserlerden yansıyan frekansı hissetmeye, bu ortak dansa eşlik etmeye davet ediyorum.
Belgin Özdağ
For years, the horse and the dancing figure have been at the centre of Belgin Özdağ’s practice: bodies reduced to the gesture of their movement, set down in single, sweeping strokes. İZ is where that search has arrived today, as the line of motion leaves the flat ground and sinks into the thickness of the paint itself.
