ESRA ÖZDOĞAN
THE INCREDULITY OF SAINT THOMAS
April 14 – May 13, 2023
Esra Özdoğan’s solo exhibition The Incredulity of Saint Thomas will be on display at Galeri Nev İstanbul between April 14 – May 13, 2023. Eponymous with Caravaggio’s representation of Apostle Thomas found in sacred texts, the exhibition aims to present the viewers with representations of an eerie, fictional, and dark world of doubt. Özdoğan spent the last two years bringing together this series, a project inquiring into the identity of photography in terms of reality.
Which media enables us to access the reality of the world we live in? What kind of information does this supposedly accessed reality constitute, and how much of it overlaps with truth? At this juncture where reality has turned into a virtual and fictional data storage, how much do we believe the things we see, and what criteria do we depend upon? How does this interface of constant doubt gnaw at us?
In Caravaggio’s most famous painting, Doubting Thomas accepts the resurrection of Jesus not only by observing his wounds inflicted on the cross, but also by touching them. Thomas’ doubtfulness is still present in today’s world, which has virtually turned into a story; it also provides a framework for the photographs in the exhibition. The photographical scenes depicted were designed within an imaginary micro-universe. The claustrophobic nature of each photograph is directly related to the photographic medium confining reality into the viewfinder. The series offers a designed universe where figures, unable to leave their own restricted world and each other, wander around like ghosts. These are prisoners trying to access the reality and knowledge of this bleak space (maybe the world as a house) usually by touching, using their sensuality, just like the Thomas of the artist; and yet, just like in Caravaggio’s painting, they cannot go beyond their own fictitiousness. They often use touch in their attempt to exit a world or a narrative that is not real, but they remain imprisoned within the framework of useless effort, of a vicious circle, maybe of a bad dream, as long as they are exhibited. At this point, even the most material objects and textures, be it the hardness of a marble column or the softness of skin, are tested through touch, turning into the expression of desperation in trying to attain information. The photographical no longer offers access to a reality that is beyond the limits of representation, and the figures (individuals) in these photographs may in fact be turning into our replicas in today’s world.
On a formal level, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas is also shaped by the main stylistic qualities of Caravaggio’s painting. Many of the photographs are shaped by elements such as lateral light, realistic and statuesque contours, chiaroscuro, and body parts instead of the whole body. Light is a form of physical energy that creates the scenes in order to bolster the false existence of this dramatic universe – as the trace of sunlight, as a candle, as a reflection– but beyond that, it is an actor that renders itself visible within the photographs.
Accepting the photograph as a certificate of reality is a type of reading; accepting that the photograph may lie is another reading; accepting that the photograph may make up stories as a medium that may lie is yet another reading. The exhibition Incredulity of Saint Thomas accepts the photograph’s false identity as a two-dimensional space, but also proposes an approach that looks at the surface of photographs like they are fictions shaped by the despotic gaze of a writer or a painter. The exhibition can be viewed as a project that turns its back to the idea of the photograph that is read as a direct trace of reality, while it opens itself up to stories using the concept of doubt and aims to create multi-layered readings and representations.