Leyla Aydoslu – 2023, IV (2023)

Walking through cities and travelling in faraway countries, Leyla Aydoslu (b. Antwerp, 1987, lives and works in Ghent, Belgium) finds her attention drawn to empty, neglected and dilapidated buildings and remaining socialist monuments: structures that have lost their original function and, in many cases, have not yet been given a new one. On the threshold of the future, they symbolise new possibilities.

Aydoslu is inspired by the discarded construction materials that she finds around such architectural havens, such as plaster, wood, insulation foam, epoxy and concrete. These are heavy and bulky materials that cannot simply be moulded to conform to preconceived ideas.

Aydoslu does not perceive the recalcitrance of the material as a limiting factor. Quite the opposite, in fact, as it forces her to abandon elaborate sketches and to surrender completely to the physical process of creation. She experienced the same sense of liberation when she left behind painting, the medium in which she was trained. The artist's interest turned out to be more in the physical, pictorial properties of paint and canvas than in the illusionistic possibilities of the medium. Gradually her works grew into bas reliefs. She then placed it on the floor, omitting the canvas.
Detached from the flat surface, her sculptures demand space. They force the viewer to relate to their forms, preferably from a range of changing perspectives.

This also applies to 2023, IV, a work that wants to be observed from all sides. It could be identified as all manner of things: an egg, a pod, a meteorite. From close up, the rough structure of this work is perhaps most reminiscent of a lunar landscape.
The gaps between the various components that make up 2023, IV reveal how the work is put together. As a viewer, you can often see Aydoslu’s working methods in the end results that she displays. In previous constructions, for example, she has exhibited not only the casts, but also the corresponding moulds, in order to create tension between positive and negative space. She never wants to conceal the structure of a work. Aydoslu is never looking to create an "illusion". This means that her pleasure in making these works becomes palpable. She has quite rightly been described as a sculptor through and through.