Anti-Baby
April 10– May 03, 2025
Anti-Baby by Gökçen Cabadan will take place at Öktem Aykut from April 10th to May 3rd, 2025. The opening will be on Thursday, April 10th between 18:30-20:30.
In the enclosed gallery space, the artist presents portraits and fictitious scenes in the form of painting and painting installations. With the 13 works he has made over the last two years, he aims to reveal a reality made up of his own experiences.
Predominantly dealing with oil pastels, Cabadan is known for grappling with the subjects of domesticity and coming of age in his works. Concerned with the human experience of being engrossed with the self and the perpetual obsession in trying to understand how the self is situated in the outside world, he finds himself returning to the visual of being in the fetal position. A desire for the position in the womb; comfort, safety and isolation, juxtaposes with the vastness of the outside world, the other and the unification with the other in the paintings in the exhibition.
In Anti-Baby, as the artist questions the inherent feeling of separation from others and the world, we find ourselves situated in a fable of adulthood; optimization, doubt, desire, possibilities and time. The title Anti-Baby is a form of sigh on the wearisome process of what comes after birth.
Inspired by the tradition of storytelling, the artist reveals a timeline of his own experiences hoping to find answers to questions together with the visitor. Shelving the comfort of the womb in a daring manner, he reveals his questions in an effort to find answers or to merely exist in common ground with others. Anti-Baby marks Gökçen Cabadan’s third one-person exhibition with Öktem Aykut.