Fascinated by textual and photographic research on celestial bodies, Yağız Özgen’s visual analysis of online astronomical resources explores the complex relationships between objects and symbols, movement and descriptions, language and the universe.

Translated onto canvas from an image captured by cutting-edge telescopes and made available online, Özgen’s methodical application of acrylic paint deconstructs the NASA-supported web archive entitled Astronomy Picture Of The Day. Stars, Dust and Gas near NGC 3572 #3 is created using the dominant colours of an image of NGC 3572, an open cluster of stars in the Carina constellation. Performed through an artistic lens, Özgen reassembles the chromatic atmosphere of an astronomical scene not usually visible to the naked eye. The result is one of rich, incandescent colour that depicts hundreds of light-years in distance across the orderly grid of a pixelated formation whose colour gradients and relationships echo Paul Klee’s celebrated colour-theory works and maxim: ‘colour is the place where our brain and the universe meet’.

Yağız Özgen was admitted to the Painting Department of Marmara University’s Fine Arts Faculty in 2005 and, following a master’s dissertation on the British director and video artist Chris Cunningham, has since completed his PhD from the same institution. While continuing to teach theoretical courses at the university, Özgen has held four solo exhibitions at Sanatorium, Istanbul: C://Still_Life (2011); Spectrum (2012); Metadata (2015) and most recently, Instructions(2019).