Hazal Özgür’s third solo exhibition, Phantasma, explores psychological dreamscapes that oscillate between reality and imagination. Drawing on shadows encountered during her nighttime walks, Özgür builds fantastical compositions where figurative elements dissolve into
allusions of light and color fields.
Developed during the course of her MFA thesis, Özgür’s practice emerges from mundane moments of observation, in which her shadow merges with other shadows and bleeds into the immediate environment, including the pavement, trees, utility poles, and discarded objects. For
Özgür, these moments evoke Freud’s concept of the “oceanic feeling,” while also constituting experiences in which her own subjectivity surfaces most distinctly. The inherently graphic and abstract nature of shadows, the way darkness reduces visual information to a minimum, and the artist’s solitude in these moments set up the conditions that allow her not merely to look, but to
see beyond what is there and turn the act of observation inward.
Özgür photographs these encounters and uses the images to create physical collages. These collages serve as a starting point, determining both the composition and subject matter of her paintings. While the collage gives Özgür a sense of direction for how to move on the canvas, she allows the painting to develop through chance, error, risk, and experimentation. In this way, the finished object emerges as an image that cannot be entirely conceived or visualized in advance.
Özgür completes each painting by continuously reassessing the relationships between color, composition, and light. Throughout this process, large sections of the canvas are covered over and painted repeatedly. Some forms and brushstrokes recede into the background, while others unexpectedly come to the fore. Ultimately, the finished painting bears only a faint resemblance to
the collage from which it began. The artist likens her studio practice to walking through a pitchdark
tunnel with a dim flashlight: she cannot fully see what lies ahead, only her immediate surroundings. In a sense, the darkness that is essential to the initial moments of observation, becomes a core element of the process of making, shaped by uncertainty and discovery.