Duel I+II (from the Pulp Fiction: The sequel series)

Two women are depicted in a duel - their guns are pointing directly at each other. Both women appear as virtual heroines with long black hair and porcelain skin. Their features are identical yet their discrepancy lies in each subject's attire - one is conservatively dressed in what resembles a Middle Eastern 'jalabiya' whilst her contender appears in a corset. Kezban Arca Batibeki uses popular culture to raise questions that concern women's role in society. She often depicts empowered women as objects of desire with guns and weapons. She conceals one of her subject's bodies whilst she reveals the other - thus unleashing a dam of loaded connotations. Duels as the work is titled - are traditionally solely undertaken by men to defend their honor. Batibeki in this work deliberately applies the rule to women in a contemporary context. Additionally it is interesting to remember that Duel is constructed within a wider context relevant to the artist's country of origin - Turkey. Turkey has debated zealously about women's appropriate dress in government buildings. Yet one may wonder if it is an allegory of Turkey's secular and religious standing between West and East. Batibeki's subjects become action heroes that are suspended in paintings. The confrontation in Duel underpins the bipolar antagonism that can be found across the Middle East between traditionalism and modernity.