Untitled 12 (NY)

Untitled 12 (NY), 2018 by Arslan Sükan
From the series of Public on Paper
Inkjet print on fine art paper
Size: 112 cm H x 80 cm W
Edition 1 of 3
Unframed

More Editions & Sizes:
Small image size: 70 cm H x 50 cm W, Edition 1 of 3
Large image size: 140 cm H x 100 cm W, Edition 1 of 3

Sukan has set out to identify alternative sites of public display and common space within the banal recesses of the everyday world. Collecting and adopting the sketch pads and papers that customers use for testing markers, pens, and other drawing tools at art supply stores through the years, from different cities around the world, Sukan considers how these test sheets serve as a vehicle for both intimate and exhibitionist performance as well as original social documents. In the improvised layers of sketches, doodles, and drawings that fill the pages, Sukan sees the documents of a ritual that approximates the practices of graffiti art but makes no allowance for participation in a common culture. Unlike palimpsest or open-sourced editing platforms where history can be scraped clean and updated, the sketch pages collapse past and present straddling the line between private notation and public expression. His transformation of these sketch-filled pages suggests that while the artist offers another voice, it is one capable of giving form to that which litters the surface of the things.

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Sukan is a multi-faceted artist who is trained in interior architecture and photography and has tackled ideas that question the limitations of human perception, the borders between the physical and the virtual as well as the visible and the invisible. Sukan’s work positions the artist as a challenging narrator who re-creates an idea or a form that confirms viewer expectations at first glance while undercutting them in practice.