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| Mustafa Hulusi |
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| Born in 1971 in London, Hulusi lives and works in the UK. Notorious for his viral fly-posting campaigns in London’s East End bearing the proclamation of his name, Hulusi moves within the realm of advertising making use of misquoted visuals such as geometric patterns, flowers or fruit. Equally existing in the gallery and the public sphere, these are distributed in formats such as leaflets, billboards and paintings. His body of work comprises screen-prints, photos and paintings that share a loaded, aggressive visual language playing with the psychology of perception. His ongoing Expander Paintings series (2006-) is an attempt to provoke an experience of decorative excess, vertigo, saturation, and psychological exhaustion. Each image analyses how the repetition of the same abstract motif exhausts its meaning. His series The Elysian Paintings (2005-06) carry a faint trace of early 20th century political propaganda, often bordering on the kitsch. Painted by a professional illustrator from photographs taken by Hulusi, these techni-colour photorealist renditions of trees and flowers in glorious full bloom test compulsive viewing and proclaim their status as painterly confections. While they depict fruits and flowers that are now common to us, at the same time they exist as and exploit symbols of the exotic, or of the other. Hulusi’s work moves within the territory of, as the artist claims, “the growing estrangement from the dominant socio-political ideology governing artists which has often led to an introspective and escapist mental space, a re-enchanted artistic space that counters the disenchantment of social and cultural life today.” In 2008 Hulusi presented solo exhibitions at Galerist, Istanbul, Turkey and at Max Wigram Gallery, London. In 2007 Hulusi represented the Republic of Cyprus at the 52nd International Exhibition of Contemporary Art of La Biennale di Venezia and had solo exhibitions at A-Foundation, Liverpool, and Max Wigram Gallery. Since 2002 he has taken part in group exhibitions in the UK and internationally including When We Build, Let Us Think That We Build Forever, BALTIC, Gateshead, UK; Into Me Out of Me at P.S.1/MOMA (NY) and Kunst-Werke (Berlin); Abstraction – Extracting from Reality, Millennium Galleries (Sheffield); East International 05, Norwich Art Gallery (Norwich); This is England, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art (Sunderland). Mustafa Hulusi is represented by Max Wigram Gallery, London. |
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