Foreign bodies: challenging the anti-anthropocentric approach through painting

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1819830 (Table of Contents)

Is it possible to avoid an anthropocentric approach while offering an artistic suggestion about being? This thesis argues my artistic practice which is about the blurriness of the lines between humans and non-humans, living and lifeless forms through the concepts of anthropocentrism, evolution and natural history. One of the main points of this thesis is to reveal my anthropocentric motivations to create an anti-anthropocentric artistic suggestion which appears as my inner contradiction in the face of my artistic intentions. Another goal of this work is to explain my method of painting that mirrors the early natural historians’ practice of recording nature and to indicate the deliberate choices that were made as I brought together the content of my works.