Remainder - Istanbul Biennial 18
"Sevil Tunaboylu’s Remainder (2024) derives both from personal history and collective mythology. Moving fluidly between media, the work begins with her grandparents’ migration from Skopje to Istanbul, chronicling a symbolic history of flight, migration, persistence and loss.
Through this archaeological excavation of her family archive, past belongings and heirlooms, Tunaboylu employs and re-casts the carpentry tools of her father and grandfather, lending the work a tactile quality. The paintings further a mythical, yet deeply lived-in, approach to family history. For instance, Desolate Reunion (2024) shows a partial hand holding up a historical snapshot from her father’s archives, taken in front of the iconic Central Post Office in Skopje. Other features in her work, such as crumpled iron bars, nod to the looming reality of non-stop construction in Türkiye and its interruption of dwelling habits and urban landscapes. A series of lizard sculptures become animalistic guides to a shifting terrain, their severed tails set to regrow. Throughout the installation, references to construction processes through her family’s intergenerational workshop tools and measuring instruments speak to a perpetual project of building space, legacy and homeland."
Pablo Larios
Remainder, 2024Oil on canvas, clay, 3D print, wood, found objects
Variable dimensions
All works commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation and Bao Foundation
