TIM KENT, CHRONOS AND KAIROS: PILEVNELI | DOLAPDERE

Telling new stories in the present with the weight of the visual and conceptual vocabulary of the past requires walking
sensitively on a path filled with images that have carried different meanings over the years. Trapped within the
boundaries and hierarchy of art history and lined up one after the other, these images are being pushed and shoved
between those who construct, read, write and perform them today, along with definitions and rules, while at the same
time liberating themselves. Art, which is trying to escape the clutches of power, art patrons, institutions and at least
coming into contact with different communities, transforms its subjects as well as its objects. Some of today's artists try
to convey their ideas and concerns through a myriad of mediums, pushing the boundaries of the body and space.
Others, like Tim Kent, remain faithful to the surface of the canvas and the possibilities of paint.

Thanks to his conceptual and technical competence, Tim Kent expands the seemingly limited canvas space with his
boundless world of imagery. He creates fragmented yet visually consistent compositions, oscillating between the
familiar and the uncanny, the expected and the unexpected. With each new work, the artist, who constantly stays by his
statement "I'm playing with art history", imparts a sense of a moment between dream and wakefulness where faces
blur, space and time become hazy and evaporate, and the details we thought we had captured give way to uncertainty.
It is as if centuries, art movements, symbols, changing and transforming spaces, and time-traveling figures roam freely in
this space. It is even possible to say that these compositions evoke the excitement of a puzzle for those who have a
closer relationship with art history. From war paintings to the tradition of portraiture, from the magnificent architecture
of the Renaissance to the golden ratio, from the master painter in front of the easel to the images of popular culture and
the network systems of the digital world, every object and character can gather on a common surface while respecting
each other's space. Themes such as power relations, the change of aesthetic perception, the destruction of the sacred,
the transformation of value judgments, the hypocrisy of politics or the absurdity of possession are conveyed on canvas
with a gentle satire.

Tim Kent draws upon his deep understanding of art history and the personal iconography of various artists to imbue
each of his pieces with unique meaning within the realm of the scenario. An architectural geometry provides the
backdrop for the dramatic environment he seeks to create, while sharp lines of perspective that refer to the Renaissance
system for construction pictorial space. These are combined with grid systems familiar to the contemporary world,
technology and architecture, as well as figures and abstract paint strokes that blur or disappear in contrast. Creating an
atmosphere of mystery and tension by saying, "I try to find ways to make sense of things we can't see", Kent positions
the viewer as a voyeur, enjoying their effort to explore this environment of obscurity. He suggests that monuments,
busts and portraits, once seen in museums as heroic symbols of Western culture, are now perceived as kitsch, devoid of
intellectual value and are often regarded as representations of colonial power and imperial ambitions. By distorting and
altering these objects, the artist converts their seriousness into a new universe of symbols infused with humour. The
paintings exist in a sort of liminal space, caught between two worlds, in a 'purgatory' as he calls it.

In his new exhibition Kronos and Kairos, Tim Kent continues his technical and conceptual journey through the concepts
of time from Ancient Greek mythology. This time he touches on specific aspects of art history, clichés, stereotypes, the
clash of tradition and modernity, the shifting balance of power, as well as orientalism, colonialism and imitation. Kronos
symbolizes historical-quantitative time and lives entirely within the flow of history. Kairos, on the other hand, refers to
what we call "the moment", the most opportune time that cannot be missed for the activation of behaviour. It is a
special moment of opportunity. Thus, creative processes, ethical and moral values also take place in this time. In his
works, Kent deals with these two times entirely through art and art history. While looking through the framework of
classical painting, he sometimes places a canvas within a canvas, sometimes distorts a portrait composition and makes it
unrecognizable, and sometimes refers directly to a visual reference or an event in history. In the production process, he
utilizes old photographs from the archives of the US National Archives or visual materials that have been scanned,
copied and reapplied to the paintings.²

Many of Kent's works become increasingly profound with their references and layers of meaning. For instance, his piece
Replicator is a layered composition that deals with the traditional Western way of painting, in which the class of women
who drew by looking at classical Greek models appear as a canvas within a canvas, and visual control is achieved
through perspective lines. Playing with the very idea of painting itself, the artist references Hogarth's drawing A Satire
on False Perspective, suggesting that confused and misplaced perspective effects would create an incoherent whole.
Additionally, by alluding to Georges Perec's short story "Portrait of a Man"³ , which tells the thrilling and suspenseful tale
of Gaspard Winckler, who undertakes the task of forging Antonella da Messina's original painting, humorously questions
the complex relationship between the original artwork and the forgery.

In another painting, Deposition there is a compositional play that refers to the scene of the crucifixion of Jesus, a
common motif in the history of art. In a large interior space, two attendants from different historical periods are seen
carrying a large painting. Taken from archival footage of the evacuation of the Louvre Museum in 1930, before the Nazi
invasion of France, this scene also refers to the time when the museum packed up all the classical artworks to prevent
the invading army from stealing them. The painting removed in this scene is Anne-Louis Girodet's Portrait of Jean
Baptiste Belley (1797). Belley was born in Senegal but sold into slavery as a young child. He was taken to SaintDomingue                                                                               

(now Haiti), a French colony in the Americas, and around 1769 he gained his 'freedom' by agreeing to serve
in the French army, a common escape route that exchanged one form of slavery for another. Belley was also elected to
the National Convention in Paris in 1793, becoming the first black deputy.

In Axis, only the lower parts of the bodies of two figures appear in an aristocratic interior and attire, while on the upper
part, the monochromatic symmetrical polka dots, which the artist actually uses to completely cover the space, kitschify a
period painting and create an inter-temporal irony. In Forgery of Love, a classic Renaissance portrait of a woman is
distorted, leaving only a single eye clear of the possible image. Together with various strokes of paint, polka dots and
erotic connotations, the whole composition is transformed into an ambiguous atmosphere. Desire, on the other hand,
breaks the visual connection in our perception with an erotic and uncanny image by disrupting the central merging of a
curly-haired figure resembling representations of Eros and another figure turning towards him. Odalisque undoubtedly
takes its place as a critical representation of the orientalist ideas and the Eastern landscape it portrays. With the legs of
a concubine, we observe an ambiguous figure similar to a king with a crown at the top of the painting. The centre of the
composition is delightfully scattered and cleverly muddied with brushstrokes.

Another group of works includes compositions depicting horses turned upside down. The horse figure, which has been
a frequent subject in the history of art, particularly during the Renaissance, symbolizes the military power of armies as
well as anatomical accuracy, virtue, purity, nobility and perfection. Horses added dynamism and enthusiasm to the
paintings, especially in large battle compositions. In one of the paintings, an inverted statue of a horse stands out,
seemingly left alone with a ghostly figure in an empty, opulent interior that seems to have been stripped of the artworks
on its walls. In another, set within a museum-like space, a horse statue is placed upside down, evoking the idea of
toppling monuments and desecrating the sacred. In the last equestrian composition, a horse standing upside down in a
large space on a ground decorated with lines seems to be suffering like an inverted symbol of a collapsed idea, where it
should be a crowded battle composition. Its title Out, out brief candle alludes to the story of Macbeth and his famous
soliloquy in which he expresses frustration: Macbeth realizes that life has become a burden, it has become mundane
and is heading in one direction, towards death. He sees, almost for the first time, that life is as short as a candle, and
that any passion we might have for anything, including the desire to seize the throne, is just meaningless noise.

Tim Kent, as he always does, bends the timeline and juxtaposes images and objects, referencing different historical,
political and artistic contexts. He reminds us that the interpretation of the layer beneath the surface is an ongoing
process, shaped by each viewer's knowledge, perception and imagination; a new journey begins with the fresh gaze of
each eye, and that Kronos can only be balanced by Kairos.

 

Text: Gizem Gedik

1.John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Penguin Books: London, 2008), s.33 1 1

2.The artist emphasizes that some of these images come from old travelogues, while others come from missionaries working for the American Consulate 

in the past.

3.Georges Perec, Portrait of A Man Known as Il Condottiere, Trans. David Bellos (University of Chicago Press, 2015)

 

For info: Doruk Çinar
dorukcinar@pilevneli.com