281. 1939 by HORASAN (Mustafa Horasan)

WHEN THE TIME COMES

Pi ARTWORKS, Eastcastle St

1939,2013/2014,.oil on canvas, 200 x 170cm

1939,2013/2014 oil on canvas,200x170cm,detail

After visiting a friend in a nursing home, Horosan (Mustapha Horasan) reflects  on 'how very fragile human bodies are, and how easily the spirit dies away and disappears, almost carelessly... However this disappearance, this extinction of the soul is ..part of nature's efforts to regenerate itself time after time'. 

The title of the painting on the left simply represents the year of the anonymous subject's birth. Still he is with us but already half his face has slipped away out of sight forever. The detail on the right shows how paint is applied in layers, then scraped away creating intricate filigree patterns in the background while thicker layers of paint suggest  the folds and wrinkles of an ageing skin.

Here Horasan explores how time creates, transforms and  destroys, reminding us of our precarious position in this world, despite our clutching at age-defying techniques . When The Time Comes encompasses regret. despair and abandonment 'for all the things we must grasp while still have time, and all the things we have let go and can never experience again'.

Here and in Istanbul Pi ARTWORKS, founded in 1998, introduces contemporary Turkish and other international artists to a wider global population.  

Can Yucel, a Turkish poet noted for his use of colloquial language, underlines the message:

If you don't want to miss out on life
Come on, let's take a look now
Come to yourself
Throw away the exhaustion that life has given you,
Time is less that what you think
Come on, wake up, 
Now it is TIME TO LIVE
(From Right Time To Live)

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