Tatil Budur

Teoman Irmak

‘Formal #1’ – 2007 – 2011

“These are not images made to dispense information, but to impart a quality of, always.”

Photographs are usually information rich. If they are properly in focus that is. Painting has other qualities. One of them is the idea of a forever. A seated figure in a painting has an implied presence of always being there. The figure is here today, will still be seated tomorrow etc. You don’t expect it to get up and walk off canvas, later. I know photos don’t move either, but we know that they are a record of a brief moment in time and we also know that the subject did get up and eventually walk away. I’m trying to say is that the painting of a figure is not a real record of a situation but a personal reinterpretation of it.

In most of these pictures, there is no situation, no story. The images float, unaffected by time or environment. They are isolated moments. Afterwards I treat them and change them further, and try and impart a little timeless quality.

Because they are no longer photographs, they have a new quality that is more like a painting. Unlike most photographs, these are not images made to dispense information, but to impart a quality of, always.