If Animals Could Talk

In a constant interplay between photographic source material, applied materials, and subjective overpainting, the artist generates new perspectives on visual conventions and established narratives. In the process, genre boundaries blur, as do the textures of artistic techniques. Two-dimensional works acquire haptic qualities, and analog media continue to transform into the digital realm.

Questions of authenticity, aura, and the meaning of the image dissolve into visual impulses that, beyond rational approaches, place particular emphasis on the emotional experience. Surrealist strategies of camouflage, exaggeration, and irony repeatedly play a central role in a visual cosmos that is almost impossible to fully grasp.

With her exhibition in the ZAK lounge, Funda Özgünaydin offers insights into her wide-ranging artistic processes and presents both photography-based series exploring the relationship between animals and humans, as well as video miniatures and large-format paintings that elevate the chimera—the hybrid, in-between being—to a new medium for critical exploration of the world.

Many of her works examine traditional structures and fixed identities in order to get a little closer to the question of the truth behind the surface in the age of complex imaging techniques.