Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, face masks have suddenly become a part of many people’s everyday life. And the situation we are in, gives new interpretations of many artworks, which can create reflection during difficult times. An old painting by Zafer Malkoç which belongs to Bora Collection at Summart, have taken on a new meaning, and remind us all, of the unreal situation that is now our reality.
Dealing with fears and suppressed emotions, Zafer Malkoç has the human at heart in his paintings. This work from 2017, has cast its light several years into the future, to today, where fear is probably the most shared thing across the world right now.
That, and face masks of course.
It’s a fear so great, that almost every human on this earth now has a mask
and where our pets have them too
where people have been stealing them from hospitals
and the US hijacking them from the French
where face masks are the most searched item on Amazon
and a new item on the black market
It’s a shared existence where the conditions we must live under is now more universal than ever. In Malkoç’s “Untitled”, the red shadows give the figure motion, connecting the past with the present. But the background is static, the woman is trapped in an empty void where there is no recognizable place to be found. But in times of pandemics, we are all trapped in the same void. We all live under the same conditions and the same moon.
A virus is an alien, it doesn’t see places, it doesn’t know borders. A wall of concrete on the edge of Mexico, will not stop it from entering America. And it will attack Britain, no matter if it is a part of a union or not. Space and place doesn’t matter. The virus doesn’t distinguish between nationalities. It only sees humans. And right now, we’re all imprisonment in the same space. We live and exists together. We are all the same!