about

Always looking for connection. That typifies the work of visual artist and teacher of visual arts and design Derya Zenginoglu (1974). Connection between man and his environment, between art-technology-science-nature and the way they interact. Often these connections are not immediately visible. But they are there when we broaden our view, remain inquisitive and try to look at things with an open mind. The connections that then become visible are shown by Derya in her work. You could say that she makes the invisible visible. Research and imagination come together and laws of nature take forms that in turn transcend tangible reality.
For a detailed biography and more of her work see: www.deryazenginoglu.nl

Anne Wind: ‘I think art is important because it evokes a deeper feeling in you than what happens in everyday life. While painting you are really in another world and that other world enriches everyday life.’

Derya’s latest project is called Oksijen. Oxygen. We all breathe it in, automatically, without giving it a second thought. But it is not so obvious, we now know. Oxygen was already an important theme in her work, but it was magnified by the corona pandemic. The idea for Oksijen arose at the beginning of the pandemic. Derya was very affected by the TV-images from Italy. Breathing was suddenly not so obvious anymore for many people because of corona. Nothing was self-evident anymore.
Oksijen wants to move people and make them think about art, the far-reaching technologies at man’s disposal, scientific developments and their relationship to nature and mankind.

Jozef de Bot: ‘The hallway in my house is a metaphor for the passage of life. Here I keep all the photographs and memories of the memorable years of the family history, but also of the seasonal festivities (…) The further you walk, the closer you come to death, because here on the wall it says: “Life leads to death” and in this case this is a glass door and behind it lies a whole other world.’

Artists give oxygen

Derya’s affection gave rise to the idea for ‘Artists give Oksijen’, a series of video portraits of artists. Derya was curious where they get their ‘oxygen’ from and how they want to give others ‘air’ with their work. The artists are filmed in their homes and studios. Derya films them ‘behind the scenes’, creating intimate portraits that give the viewer an authentic look into the artists’ world: how they live, work and think. The portraits are about color and freedom, life and death and ‘painterly’ solutions, in which the ordinary and extraordinary are constantly intermingled. Painting techniques and philosophical thoughts, the mundane and metaphysical, the rational and absurd: it all passes in these fifteen-minute video portraits.
The videos are partly in Turkish, with subtitles in Dutch and all videos are translated into Turkish, Dutch and English.

Wynand Buursink: ‘I think art should be as ordinary as possible.’