Yiğit Hepsev
Through animation, film and installation the young Turkish artist Yiğit Hepsev examines complex intersections of fact, fiction and narrative, while simultaneously scrutinizing the media he employs and how it shapes our understanding of reality. The artist reconfigures the familiar with characteristic wit and subversive humour. His is a meticulous and process-oriented approach.Distilled to essences of line, color and form, his installations foreground the particularities of the medium, its defining characteristics. Hepsev aims to create a new landscape, one in which he hopes we find points of anchor and experience a sense of connection.
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About the Artist
Curator İpek Yeğinsü examines the themes and motifs of Yiğit Hepsev’s work and the context in which it was made:
In his video work Outside, Yiğit Hepsev focuses on the individual’s sense of belongingness and the quest for identity from an inner point of view. He leaves the viewer face to face with a character visible in six different frames, never able to belong somewhere or to hold on to something. The figure that continues to fall into the void in the presence of sounds whose source we cannot exactly identify, seems to be surrounded by the imagery he or she mentally assigns to the concept of non- belongingness. Each frame has a different dominant motif: the breasts symbolize the quest for sexual identity, spanning from childhood to adulthood; the white nets observed by uncanny eyes in the dark represent the family’s, the social network’s and the society’s prejudices; the rolling avalanche balls stand for the pressure of the anxieties that dominate the world of thoughts and that grow as they are added together; the greenish liquid reminiscent of the deep waters where the first traces of life emerged, symbolizes the tentative answers to cosmic and existential questions; the pink sky represents the never fulfilled dreams and disappointments pertaining to vital objectives; and finally, the falling figure dominating the black background is a reminder of the inner void and helplessness generated by all these layers of belongingness. While we also sense the artist’s nostalgia for his childhood, Hepsev’s attitude is once more strengthened by his naive graphic language and invites the viewer to a sensitive journey into the deepest parts of his ego.
After studying Interactive Media Design, Yiğit Hepsev started to work in animation industry as a motion graphics artist. He has also participated to group exhibitons at Pera museum and elsewhere. He then turned his direction to film directing, Kuyruk,Yük, The Edge, My Heart is Blue for You are among his notable short films. He is a fan of the Magical Realism genre, a style that weaves threads of fantasy into a depiction of everyday life. Currently he is writing and directing short films, music videos and commercials. He holds a bachelor degree from Yıldız Teknik University and a masters degree from Bilgi University Film & TV Department.
Yiğit Hepsev's video installation Outside
Outside by Yiğit Hepsev
