Artist talk with:

DERYA AKAY

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Derya Akay’s practice is driven by a curiosity of how things are made. From flowers to food to furniture, it explores the means of production of non-art objects and how these processes find confluence with his own art making practice. Akay’s research is always a process of education where he learns the skills necessary to make the objects that interest him. The acquisition of these skills begins to inform his art making. Ways of building, growing, and cooking become translated in his work into gesture, composition, and form. In this way, the production of non-art objects becomes the work itself. These works include textiles, still lifes, ceramics, photographs, furniture and gardens. Akay is interested in a tradition of appropriation with a focus on the means of production, rather than on products themselves. His ceramics reflect his interest in the meaning and experience of a meal that he has grown, cooked, and served to the community that surrounds him. In this manner, Akay engages with questions of self-sufficiency, self-reliance, community and sustainability. To look at these from another perspective, he is interested in the intersections, tangents and parallels between life, art and work. Derya Akay grew up in Istanbul, Adana and New York. He obtained his BFA from Emily Carr University in 2010 and has since been living in Vancouver. He has an upcoming solo exhibition at Centre A titled Breakfast, lunch, dinner & supper opening in November. He was shortlisted for the 2014 CASV Emerging Artist Prize and recent solo exhibitions are anewground, The Apartment, Vancouver (2013);Wall blobs, Terasaki gallery, Kofu-shi, Yamanashi, Japan (2013). He is represented by The Apartment, Vancouver.