“Ümit İnatçı is a poet of visual imagery, words, ethics, and attitude.”
— Bruno Cora
Fragile Cosmic Traces and "An-Arche"
1. When the body reveals its own existence as a story – an action that has thus come to an end – we are faced with a writing fiction. It is a matter of existence that does not contain words to explain it but is simply a cosmic event a situation that takes place on the earth as a universe. These signs do not explain what is happening to the world, they do not represent it, they do not offer a clear vision, they do not convey any meaning: they are fragile cosmic traces of the inescapable corporeality of existence… The path extending from “I” to the universe is our own body; so much and so nothing... I have an understanding of art in which the mind and body cannot be considered separately and in which not only the idea but also the body language can be read in the work. Making a painting as if scribbling and oscillating between the linear discipline of geometry is like breathing between instinct and logic… For me, painting is a resistance against the boundaries of time and space.
2. According to the ancient Greek poet Hesiod, one of the creators of mythological cosmogony and theogony, chaos is at the origin of the creation of the world. Chaos is absolute and at the same time it is cosmic harmony itself. From Hermes to Orpheus, this understanding transforms into a creation and belief myth, turning nature into a mysterious world. In such a world, ritual and spell have nourished spiritual tendencies, and this comes from man's very nature. Humanity is a being that seeks to find meaning in the experiences between its nature and its subjectivity. Art is the natural action that makes this meaning-making and elevation visible.
3. The instinct to assign significance to one’s own existence and the desire to remember and be remembered result in an inevitable tendency to leave traces. The trace, starting from a line, transforms into a form that imitates nature, always embodying a feeling of sublimation. Then, sound and tone. From the whistle of the wind to symphonies, from a shamanic chant to hymns, music rises through the complex emotions of worship, devotion, and liberation... Like painting, music has continued to draw from the mysterious relationship between human beings and nature.
4. I try to establish a connection between the first human who made their mark on a cave wall and the contemporary person expressing themselves through images. In my abstract painting practice, which stretches from childish scribbles to conscious visual depictions, there is an attempt to gather the human tendencies to create art. On the other hand, just as Klee searched for music in painting, I too search for music and harmony on a two-dimensional plane adorned with abstract symbols. The ritualistic aspects in my works that draw from both painting and “arte povera” can be linked to Orphic spirituality. My works are as old and anachronistic as the search for harmony with nature is an ancient search; because I believe that thinking within the limits of the present creates a state of mind that contradicts art. A work should belong neither to a beginning nor to an end; it should belong to all times.
5. Nature is one, and everything that contains nature is part of such unity. Every individual, as both a body and an autonomous spirit, realizes themselves in nature, finding their counterpart and contrast. As an artist striving to express myself through this transcendent reality. I produce artworks as a response to a modus vivendi reflection without subjecting it to any content design. I preferred to make a spiritual and anthropological journey towards the origin of art by purifying art from intellectual arguments that contain excessive interpretation. Therefore, with a rather anarchist approach, I try to focus on the nature of primitive and spiritual art born from ritual functions by rejecting artificial innovative priorities. I have an understanding of art in which the concepts of “new” and “old” become meaningless and I keep close to myself what suits my tendencies.
6. Orphism is a term used to describe the colour harmony-based compositions of cubic painters. I believe I create paintings that fully embody the essence of Orphic art. We can metaphorically see the reflection of the dualism of Hermes and Orpheus in my ritual paintings constructed between abstract symbols – abstractions from nature and motifs structured in musicality and text order. Whether in my painted works or object-based works, they always contain an esoteric narrative evoking charm and magic. These archetypal tendencies in art can also be seen as a form of resistance to the technological saturation that shapes our minds today. You will notice these tendencies reflected even in my installation works No matter what medium I use, I am first and foremost a painter and I objectify my works as a painter.
7. I create art not as a metropolitan intellectual trapped in the present, but as a shaman seeking to return to the cosmic unity of nature. Primitivism and geometry, intuition and reason, subject and object, mystery and clarity, part and whole, doubt and absoluteness, spirit and mind... I strive to demonstrate that all of these transcendental aspects are but roles in a cosmic game. Every ritual is a form of escape from reality, a resistance to nothingness, and art is no different in presenting another state of existence. “Is the real itself nothingness?” I think we need to find a way to break free from the everyday effects that prevent us from asking this question. Even defining myself as an anarchist and atheist is incomplete, or excessive. If my journey is toward “nothing”—a life free from purpose-driven structure—then these definitions may lose their significance. The impossibility of reaching nothingness does not invalidate the effort, for this very effort lays the foundation for a new understanding of existence. Nothingness is not absence, it is not non-being, it is the domain of what is yet to be, the autonomy of becoming.
8. From shamanism to the hermetic ritual arts of the Egyptians, from the cosmogony of Ancient Greek mythology to cultural anthropology — the forms of depiction extending into the present are embedded in the cultural genetic structure of my works. From ancient ceramics to icons, from temple paintings to carpet motifs, from a shaman’s enchanted object to the schematic drawings of alchemists, from Eastern paintings to miniatures... Anything that perceives painting and writing as a whole occupies my mind. These sources of inspiration and knowledge keep my mind alive, contributing to the dynamism of my artistic production. Of course, the psycho-dynamics of art, its social impact, intellectual and spiritual oscillations, ontological concerns, and moral conditions are important for an artist, but even more significant is not allowing one's own existence to become a tool for another mind’s pursuit of sublimity. Because art itself is sublimation.
9. The ideographic signs, pictograms, asemic and automatic-psychic writings, and the phonetic alphabet I create as translingual codes define the poetic and hermetic aspects of my works. The arrangement of my paintings or object-based surfaces according to a cosmic harmony is the visual language of my quest. This structure is for creating rhythm in my paintings; it is connected to life, much like the heartbeat. The primitive tendencies that define the intuitive relationship with nature are represented in my works alongside the effort for geometric perfection as a dualistic approach reflecting the eclectic tendencies of modern humanity. On one hand, there is the schematic relationship between space and movement within geometric order, while on the other, the dynamic, chaotic, and random relationship between movement and space... This is the unity of the unpredictable, the accidental, and the designed.
10. This inclination to create written layers (the dynamic state of the body) stems from the need to represent the mental oscillations in the process of becoming. The black areas that I use as the geometry of the void (the canvas is first painted black), lines drawn with a prescriptive care, abstract symbols and the automatic writings that connect them are related to the ambivalent tendency that emerges as a precondition of the subconscious. On one hand, automatic expression, on the other, the controlling attention that manages randomness, together form the character of this ambivalent formal-informal union. The transition area between what is implicit and what is obvious is a paradoxical space where the mystical and the phenomenal meet... The writings and inscriptions of ancient civilizations have been a source of inspiration for me. My pictograms, with an intuitive approach, have taken the form of a language that aims to create signs of intellectual independence, a language without semantic equivalence.
11. I see my paintings as designed gardens. These gardens are utopian spaces filled with plants and organic beings nourished by cosmic energy. They are like abstract lyricism created with biomorphic forms. A charm that continually nourishes unity and vitality. A chaotic order that contains perfect geometry. Each painting is like a garden where cosmography is perceived as chaos geometry; harmony of perfection, fertile contradictions, differences that reconcile impossible unions… The reason why I want to produce my works like arranging a garden is my existential tendency to imitate the order of nature.
12. I have never been concerned with keeping up with time; I perceive time as a spirituality in which I can test my own mental possibilities. Art is a spirituality that gifts me the freedom to be lifted off the ground rather than standing firmly on my feet; it does not submit the performative to the dominion of pure reason… I am the primitive of the future who resists the hegemony of technology and the digital age, which standardize our behaviours, a contemporary shaman. I know that every new invention of humanity, locked within neo-liberal reason, is a power move trying to assert its superiority over nature, strengthening inequality between people; the reward is not unconditional benefit but material superiority. The impulse behind my art’s independence from temporal phases and its nourishment from ancient universal cultures, and this anachronistic attitude towards the contemporary, arises from the need for such a radical break.
13. An-arche… We must search for ourselves not in the first, but in every instance and in constant becoming. To praise the first and to always and again exist around the sanctity of the “first” means giving up on ourselves. I present all my critiques and my performative act as an artist within the scope of an anarchist thought. Everything that begins to become stereotyped, ossified and transformed into order corresponds to a totalitarian structure; what I understand from art is to be the exact opposite of this.
Painting, Music, and Poetry.
14. The distinction between seeing and internalizing is the distinction between descriptive depiction and representational depiction. While optical reality seeks an answer to the desire to see and observe, spirituality and internalization find their counterpart in abstract representation. It is a visuality that is always positioned according to the movement possibilities of the human body, either horizontally or vertically. We see that this visual plane necessarily takes shape within a horizontal arrangement of lines and images; this is a situation concerning the physical suitability of the relationship between the body and the surface. Suitability, harmony, and the need for a fluid arrangement that facilitates visual perception were necessary. What emerges from this is the poetry and music of the visual level itself…
15. painting which is visual, music which is audial and poetry which is literal; producing works within such a multi-perceptual integrity had become the pursuit of many artists, albeit at different finality. Our sensory activities, like looking and seeing, touching and feeling, listening and hearing, have always been under the influence of a harmonic need. Every line attempt directed at constructing a painting attributes a form of seeing to the collective activity of the eye. Then, we perceive them not in their organic forms in nature but in their graphically represented forms. However, in this case, what we perceive is not just the thing as it exists in nature, but the spiritual form in which the thing is perceived.
16. Nature is not silent. The sounds produced by living beings, the sounds humans make when interacting with objects, the sound of the wind, thunder—one might assume that these sounds form an invisible river that stretches endlessly within a cosmic depth. The pursuit of an inner harmony, fed by sound and light sources according to human sensory abilities, inherently contains poetry and music. Humanity has a rich artistic history full of examples where one can perceive poetry in painting, painting in poetry, music in painting, and painting in music. To see the painting in music, we close our eyes. To hear the music in a painting, we must keep our eyes open. The ancient Greek poet and musician Simonides (c. 556 – c. 469 BC) said that poetry is a painting made with words, painting is a poem made with visuals, and that the essence of poetry is music.
17. The translation of the visual and auditory into an aesthetic language within harmony was certainly an area of interest for many artists and art thinkers. The painting, constructed in the realm of visual perception, would necessitate a synesthetic perception discipline by arousing the viewer’s different sensory activities with musical and poetic prosody. The complex sounds reflecting each other between microcosm and macrocosm seek their own harmony within the cosmic unity. Rhythmic repetition, which gives both a sense of chaos and order as a dynamic of infinite cycles, takes place within an integrating space. The sounds flowing in the tone of speech stretch between density and sparsity, while the moving silence within the voids enables the accumulation of another energy.
18. Making a painting that triggers thought processes and guides us to recall our experiences is, in fact, an attempt at constructing a collective memory map. Between the atom and infinite space, from the first line drawn by a human on a surface to a spaceship, from the void to mass... Between Thing and Cosmos – life and death – I want to make art that creates the mental distance between my being and non-being, a kind of Ars Memoriae! I imagine every painting of mine as a garden where musical instruments are played and poems are read. Within the organic and geometric unity of the garden, under the infinite sky, I design the choreography of a musical play. In this utopian garden, nature and space offer me their sounds, their colours, their scents… To construct a joyous Armonia Mundi between the timelessness and timelessness of the cosmos.
