hold, place, transfer ↵ repeat

hold, place, transfer ↵ repeat
Betül Aksu
29.02 - 06.03.2024
Material
Klingenstrasse 23
Zürich

Betül Aksu’s first solo exhibition titled hold, place, transfer ↵ repeat opens at Material in Zürich between February 29 - March 6, 2024. Curated by Marea Hildebrand from The School of Commons (ZHdK), the exhibition brings together two series of works on paper accompanied by an installation that displays the artist’s printmaking materials.

Betül Aksu’s works in printmaking play with the notions of uniqueness, repetition and mistakes. Her monotype series titled Unnamed rectangles use standard metal plates to print images of overlapping rectangles that are random in size. In this work, the artist explores what is considered unique in the wide spectrum of printmaking practices. She prints on the same archival paper over and over again by applying the ink on a metal plate and transferring it onto paper until the ink no longer prints. In this repetitive printing process, the artist holds the metal plate, places it on the paper and transfers the ink without fixing the mistakes.

While working on Unnamed rectangles, the artist uses newsprint papers to protect the printing bed and unprinted areas of the archival paper. These low-cost and non-archival papers pick up the ink residue and the engraving of the rectangular plate, creating images in between the unique prints and their ghost images. These randomly engraved painting series titled image break accompany the unique prints, building a tension around image uniqueness. The storefront of the gallery space displays the installation titled Studio on the go. The work welcomes passersby to witness the printmaking materials the artist has used in her workspaces in Izmir, Istanbul and London.