This exhibition presents new  sculptures by master sculptor Yücel Kale and several new digital paintings by Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay.

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Yücel Kale's five new works have been made over the past three years.⁠These works address the realm of poetry, and are characterized by a light palette and charged, mysterious atmospheres.In his imagined world, Kale’s sculptures present us with symbolic figures from the past, from myth, or from fiction. Drawing on the artist's influential, decades-long investigation into curvaceous forms, his sculptures evoke both the morphology and semiotics of the curve. Oscillating between geometry and free form, Kale's compositions are intricate, dense, multi-colored, and literally full of layers — of colors, paints, papers, and meanings. Light pervades his work,  otherworldly forms defined by the outer reaches of imagination, and a nature rendered both familiar and strange. It endeavors to capture the poetic imagination, and suggests that moments of reflection allow the ordinary to become extraordinary. The sculptures appear anthropomorphic and organic. The artist employs fanciful myth, old symbols and irrational beliefs and wonder at the natural world.

 

Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay creates paintings  that are characterized by a sense of movement  and vibrant luminosity. She is interested in portraying  fantasy. The construction of fantastical and multidimensional environments is integral to her practice. The artist produces immersive  compositions that borrow from the animated structures of Futurism, and light and color pervade every aspect of her work. Cagatay’s visual lexicon originates also from the Surrealist impetus. Her radiant  paintings are marked by tonal and chromatic shifts that operate in concert. She is always attuned to the ways that color and light merge with thought itself. Approaching painting as an experience in immersive subjectivity, she builds finely wrought narratives. She corrals diverse influences within a signature language, dancing between figuration and abstraction, construction and deconstruction, positive and negative space, spontaneity and control.As in much of her work, the theatrical and the intricate verge on the surrealistic, and she is interested in powerful images that strike chords embedded deep in the reservoirs of our unconscious. Cagatay's preoccupation with the infinite and sublime  dates back to her earliest paintings from the 2012s.

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Yücel Kale is an Istanbul based established artist,  who began his artistic career two decades ago studying sculpture at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts  University, Istanbul (1993-2000).  In 1997 Kale had his first large-scale solo presentation with C.A.M Art Gallery, Istanbul. His work has been exhibited  solo or as part of group exhibitions internationally at fairs -Art New York 2017 , Aqua Art Miami 2017, SOFA Sculpture Objects Functional Art and Design, New York (2008), ST-ART Strasbourg Contemporary Art Fair, France (2009), Frankfurt Book Fair, Germany (2008), Asia Pacific Leather Fair Hong Kong(2014), Contemporary Istanbul (2006,2012, 2013, 2021)-; at museums, -Museum Der Arbeit in Hamburg, Germany(2009) and Santa Maria della Scala Museum, Siena Italy(2008); at Portside Gallery in Yokohama, and at Youkobo, Japan(2004). The artist had also many solo exhibitions nationally,  at many established galleries including Galeri Apel, C.A.M. Art Gallery, Galeri Selvin, Imoga Art Space and Siyah Beyaz Art Gallery. His works are held in private collections.

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Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay grew up in Istanbul with an art teacher mother who surrounded her with paintings and art history books. She taught her painting as a child, and introduced her the work of the masters, which inspired the artist from a young age; leading to national art prizes - including a first prize in a nation wide art competition when she was a high school senior. She has studied from 11 to 19 years old in Lycée de Galatasaray, a major establishment having formed the politicians and artists of the country. She had the opportunity to use the school’s art studio on the Bosphorus exclusively. The French influence she received in this centuries old school with a blend of French and Turkish curricula reflects in her paintings. She has been invited to the major art academy of the country, and studied at Bosphorus University Business School; which also taught a rich humanities program. The artist pursued an executive career working as a management committee member for multinational companies, and quit to indulge in her passion for art. She gave herself a tailored art education, living in art centers - Paris, London and New York- and studied contemporary art at the programs of IESA Paris, Sotheby’s Institute of Art London and New York.  She then had exhibited her work both solo or in group at the gallery she co-founded and at Contemporary Istanbul 2014,2019 , 2020 and 2021 and also in Scope New York 2020 with a solo presentation.

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