TIM KENT, POSSESSION: PILEVNELI | YALIKAVAK

 

 

Where do the limits of the canvas begin and end? Throughout history, painters who have transformed a certain surface from a two-dimensional space reflecting the states of the mind into multidimensional gateways opening to new worlds have tried to discover the boundaries of this space and the possibilities it offers. The use of color, texture, layers, brushstrokes, perspective, figures, landscapes, and spaces – what they convey or respond to, what they evoke in our minds – are always subjects that need to be reconsidered. In today’s art, where traditional painting has given way to a variety of materials, objects, surfaces and mediums, and infinite possibilities are presented to us as sources and tools, some artists still prefer to use surfaces such as canvas and paint without limits. Moreover, they continue to explore the power and flexibility of this surface with the subjects, images and symbols they choose to frame. Time Kent is one such contemporary artist who focuses on the essence of painting itself and its history, carrying on a tradition in a different way, sometimes disrupting, dismantling, or critiquing it, and at other times, using multiple times and spaces to keep our visual and intellectual excitement fresh. In his paintings of various sizes mostly on linen, the artist’s sharp perspective lines, which refer to the Renaissance system for constructing pictorial space, are combined with the grid systems familiar to the contemporary world, technology and architecture that blend with unclear, fading or disappearing figures and abstract brushstrokes, creating a sensitive contrast.

 

Born in 1975 in Vancouver, Canada, the artist strengthened his interest in architecture during his student years by making surveys of historical houses in England, even getting access to collections by meeting with property owners. His works vary through different interpretations, focusing on both buildings and interior spaces, as well as art pieces and accumulated knowledge in the historical field. With captivating compositions, the artist conveys his themes, expanding around power relations in art and history, global infrastructures, social connections, technology and network systems, bringing contemporary reflections and inquiries to the forefront.

 

A Limbo on the Surface of High Art
The Renaissance period in art can be charactarized by the production of certain ‘so-called’ symbols of civilization and the development of various practices in the works of many artists over time, such as the observation of nature, the study of anatomy and perspective. But what happens when the defining symbols of the high culture of the time – and of commissioned paintings, often dominated by patrons – are transposed and questioned, integrated into the realities of the contemporary world, distorted and reimagined in different contexts? Many of Tim Kent’s works deal with the powerful language of images from this period through unfamiliar scenes and perspectives. Reflecting on historical memory and power, the artist examines the shift in aesthetic taste from elitist to popular culture. He states that monuments, portrait busts and paintings, once seen in museums as heroic symbols of western culture, are now considered kitsch, anti-intellectual and, frequently, as representations of colonial power and imperialist tendencies. The seriousness of this subject belies an underlying humor as the object gets flipped, evacuated, transformed or obscured. These paintings are caught between two worlds, in a “limbo” as Tim Kent calls it.

 

Tracing Dissolving Figures in Multiplying Spaces
With the visual memory and attention that comes from a complete command of art history and the personal iconography of various painters, the artist ascribes a different meaning to each piece and to each structure that he places in his composition. Especially with the linear ones, starting with intricate underdrawings composed of dozens and even hundreds of lines with complex perspective projections, the artist continues by dividing the space within and adding his ‘ghost figures’. While some parts of the bodies are distinguishable, they gradually blur and transform into ghostly images with the fading of brushstrokes and color fields, while the spaces occasionally take on a hybrid character, resembling video game visuals, augmented reality scenes or the tangible world. The vanishing point of the images and the urge to explore the figures and colors that appear vaguely behind open doors clearly reflect the painter's will and control over how to position the viewer.

Tim Kent allows us to define and position the figures and materials in our desired imagery, be it neoclassical proportions, elegant furniture, ballrooms, ancient clothing, or the master painter in front of his easel. Meeting the gazes of the dissolving figures is often impossible, but we always have the opportunity to imagine and construct these silhouettes in a dystopian world spanning multiple spaces and times. The architectural feature that the artist uses as a leitmotiv (repetitive method of expression) in most of his paintings is the Enfilade technique. Paintings such as Delayed Refraction (2022), The Commission (2022), Ghost of an Idea (2021), Fading Room (2019), which he paints in this way, take the viewer, who is drawn into an uninterrupted interior landscape, on a journey between dimensions. Derived from the French word "enfilade", meaning to arrange things in a straight line, enfilade is a technique common in Baroque palaces, large apartments and art museums, which has a powerful spatial and psychological effect, leading the viewer to an uninterrupted view when all doors are open. Utilizing this technique, Tim Kent not only deepens his two-dimensional surface layer by layer but also engages the viewer in a game of hide-and-seek, preventing us from seeing connecting areas and concealing ambiguous figures or objects behind doors that we cannot choose to open. Triggering the imagination through this method, the viewer remains immersed in their own imaginary images within the artist’s composition.

Kent's exhibition "Between the Lines," held at the Hollis Taggart gallery in New York in 2022, relates to the concept of enfilade and adds another layer, suggesting the viewer's role as an observer. Hence, in most of the artist's works, the viewer becomes a voyeur, witnessing semi-rendered ghost figures placed behind a door or in a corner of the same grand architecture. For instance, Study Room (2022) allows us to observe a woman sitting at a desk in an ornate blue study room backdrop. As the perspective lines soar along the walls above, the woman’s head blurs and transforms into a smear.

 

New Trials and Interventions
Juxtaposing Johannes Vermeer's illusionistic style with abstraction and linear perspective, Kent's interiors blend his responses to current events with found and personal archival photographs. One of his recent series, "Interference" (2023), stands apart from his other compositions by reminding viewers of the iconic dots of contemporary artists like Damien Hirst or "polka dot princess" Yayoi Kusama, even though Kent's dots are quite symmetric and monochromatic. In this series, he integrates these dots with his linear networks and intervenes with geometric details that hide, fragment, or divide the figures in the scene, creating a fusion of portraiture or shadow. While the artist has skillfully used open spaces, architectural structures, interconnected rooms, and linear perspective in his previous works, in pieces like "Elpis" (2022), "Night Caller" (2022), "The Autumn of Marthe De Florian" (2022), "Vienna" (2022), "Two Figures in a Room" (2022), "The Set" (2021), and "Heirloom" (2013), he also particularly focuses on interior spaces and delicate figures of everyday life. These works require an emotionally intense level of perception and interpretation, generally leading to more personal connections.

 

This time at Pilevneli Yalıkavak, Tim Kent presents a large selection of his recent works. Constructions that can contain many new ideas within paintings, spaces within spaces and ideas within ideas are waiting for curious eyes to re-evaluate the history of art with a different perspective, to understand the visual world of the artist and to discover the mysterious details behind multiple doors.