Rasim Aksan delves into human relationships, space, and visual perception in great detail, focusing on the chaos of visual culture in his works. His extensive archive, gathered from daily life and visual media, forms an essential part of his creative process. While exploring the spatial and relational contexts of figures, Aksan combines classical elements with contemporary themes, creating a timeless narrative. His works, centered around the human figure, question the social and psychological structures between individuals, drawing attention to their relationship with everyday life. He encourages the viewer to move beyond the surface of his art and invites them to uncover the different layers within his works.
Aksan focuses on the textured details of figures and objects in his compositions, emphasizing these details with the techniques he uses. By combining materials such as acrylic, calligraphy ink, and marbling paint with airbrush techniques, he highlights both the material usage and the movement of the surface in his paintings. Aksan, who does not want his artistic style to be defined as hyperrealistic, places great importance on adding textural richness to his images. In works that address flowers and vagina forms, he explores the parallels between various shapes and aims to create a visual dialogue with these images. The artist goes beyond superficial concepts like eroticism or exhibitionism, focusing on the relationships between form and structure.
Aksan brings together religious and cultural symbols with contemporary images on the same plane, questioning how different visual elements can be interpreted together. While creating a sacred atmosphere with figures like Adam and Eve, angel depictions, and fabric waves, he juxtaposes these with contemporary images such as neon signs, cartoon characters, and eroticized female bodies. This contrast opens up space for reflection on the conflicts within contemporary visual culture and societal moral codes. The images Aksan has gathered and the visuals he selects from his archive come together in a plane created by the convergence of different times and places, raising new questions about visual perception.
Born in Çorum in 1984, Rasim Aksan completed his undergraduate degree in the Department of Painting and Art Education at İnönü University in 2007 and his Master’s degree in the Department of Fine Arts at Yeditepe University in 2010. His selected exhibitions include 12.12.12., Galerist (2016); Still Life with a Curtain, Galerist & Galeri Nev (2018); In Pursuit of the Present, Istanbul Modern (2018); and Neo, Galerist (2020).
Rasim Aksan lives and works in Istanbul.