It’s Complicated

In It’s Complicated (2022), Esra Gülmen turns a simple black guitar cable into both a visual line and a linguistic loop. Hand-written with the phrase “I am complicated, you are complicated, she/he/it is complicated…”—the full declension of the verb—the work humorously pushes against the overused relationship trope that labels one person as “the complicated one.”

By choosing a cable, a tool for connection and communication in music, Gülmen suggests that emotional complexity is not a flaw but a shared, human condition—something that links us rather than separates us. The looping grammar becomes both a literal and metaphorical line: a tangled thread of identity, vulnerability, and shared experience.

The work’s form remains flexible and ever-changing, just like the narrative it portrays—messy, evolving, and always plugged into something deeper.

It’s Complicated, 2022
Acrylic handprint on cable
40 x 45 cm (Dimensions variable)
Unique