Ocula Conversation Bani Abidi: ‘What you see in my films is what I know’ A group of voices accompanies me in the exhibition. They are singing words I cannot comprehend, yet the warm tunes are familiar: folk songs, love songs, songs of longing. There are letters, too. They speak of the quotidian details of a soldier's life: the hardness of the war, sending money to the family, and longing for familiar landscapes, food,...
Ocula Report Aichi to Okayama: Art in Japan Looks to the Future 11 Oct 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula There has been a flurry of triennial and biennial art activity in Japan this year. The Aichi Triennale opened in Nagoya this August, sparking a national debate about the shutting down of a display of formerly censored works—the result of public backlash against a burnt image of Emperor Hirohito and a statue commemorating the women forced into...
Ocula Insight | Video Mark Bradford’s Call for Unity at Shanghai’s Long Museum 16 August 2019 Mark Bradford walks through Mark Bradford: Los Angeles Mark Bradford: Los Angeles at the Long Museum West Bund in Shanghai (27 July–13 October 2019) is the artist's largest solo exhibition to date in China. In this video for Ocula, Bradford and Diana Nawi, curator of the show, walk through selected works that convey the artist's concerns with...
Exploring beyond the expectations of conventional medium techniques, Sami uses the possibilities inherent in the painted process—colour, form and material—to create uniquely handled artworks made with synthetic polymer paint. His persistent practice of experimentation shows in Chroma, as he is able to present the idea of deconstructing the process and substance of painting. As the title Chroma suggests freedom from dilution, the paintings also draw parallel in experimenting with the freedom of the medium.
Sami proposes painting as both subject and medium in Chroma. His paintings invite the viewer to assess and interpret the surface to open up potential readings and perceptual possibilities. These particular works explore painting as a performative process, dealing with the physicality of the medium, expanded fields, supports and surface. And the different blend of hues in each work are able to show chroma or the purity of each colour combination. Chroma presents the physical and tactile nature of painting for Sami and also reveals a preoccupation with exploring the spatial qualities of painting and pictorial space that encourages unlimited orientation and extension.
Without losing his presence in the process, Sami takes control of the element of chance that embodies the idea of experimentation and examines different aspects of time and action.
Sydney based artist Huseyin Sami (b. 1979) is known for his multi-disciplinary practice engaging with painting, sculpture and installation to explore aspects of time, action and process. Examining the possibilities inherent in the painted process—colour, form and material—he deconstructs the process and substance of painting in order to formulate what he calls "a unique material language of painting."
Sami has been exhibited both in Australia and internationally, including at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sarah Cottier Gallery and Artspace in Sydney, Sophie Gannon Gallery in Melbourne, Taubert Contemporary Berlin, Germany, Bell Street Project Space in Austria, and Zenshi Gallery in Japan. He received several awards for his work including the Janet Holmes à Court Artist's' Grant, an Australia Council New Work Grant and the CCA Contemporary Arts Centre Scholarships.
His works are held in many public collections, including: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Artbank, Australia; Saatchi & Saatchi, New Zealand, and many private collections in Australia, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and the United States.
