'While there is much to worry about these days, including the extremely concerning climate crisis, one may find that talking "about the weather" is not such an innocent combination of absurd empty words after all.'
—Canan Tolon
Dirimart is delighted to host Canan Tolon's second solo exhibition titled About the Weather. Concentrating on Tolon's recent series with the same title, the show comprises the artist's large-scale rust and acrylic on canvas pieces.
With her compositions created with stains, traces and random paint puddles, Canan Tolon produces works that are in constant motion with what occurs in the mind of the viewer. The abstract compositions she creates with the belief that perfection can only be achieved by chance are formed when metal pieces, placed on the canvas to leave their marks, combine with water and weather, creating rust stains whose forms are difficult to predict. In her practice that embraces being dependent on the conditions of the outside, Tolon's works can be read as a record of the processes that the artist initiates on the canvas, such as air movements, pollution, humidity and temperature changes, and wind, that are beyond her control. Thus, Tolon weaves her works with chemical processes, chance and waiting. The resulting forms continue to be in constant dialogue with the viewer, inviting free association.
The fact that Tolon's recent large-scale works in the About the Weather exhibition are accompanied by her earlier works can be interpreted as a pictorial indicator of her long-standing sensitivity to environmental issues. The ironic exhibition name, which means not talking about a worthwhile issue, reminds the public of the importance of communicating by uniting around common feelings and concerns in an environment where polarisation, reinforced by intra-society conflicts and debates, deepens day by day. While doing this, the works produced in Tolon's peculiar language, spread throughout the exhibition space in their own rhythm, multiply the emotions that evoke the feelings that unite everyone when faced with a 16th-century Uşak carpet or paintings by masters such as Goya and Rothko. Each of the works, which is enriched by combining the image of history and imagination in the viewer's mind, is an invitation to return to more urgent and vital matters of common interest which are concealed by small talks.
Canan Tolon (b. 1955, Istanbul) followed an education on Interior Design at A.A. Middlesex University and she completed Berkeley with a Master's degree in Architecture in 1983. Her recent exhibitions include Tunnel Vision, Dirimart, Istanbul (2022); Limbo, Cocoon by CIF, Fişekhane, Istanbul (2022); You Tell Me, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul (2019); Where were we, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, San Francisco (2018) and I will not say I told you so, Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles (2017). The works of the artist are included in various collections such as The British Museum (London), Arter Museum (Istanbul) and Istanbul Modern Art Museum (Istanbul). Tolon lives and works in Istanbul and San Francisco.
Press release courtesy Dirimart.
Hacıahmet Mahallesi. Irmak Cad. 1-9
Dolapdere
Istanbul, 34435
Turkiye
www.dirimart.com
+90 212 232 6666
Tuesday – Saturday
10am – 7pm
Sunday
12pm – 7pm