Situations, encounters, and perceptions combine with their visualinspirations and intuitions to construct a new context. Unforeseen orinexplicable coincidences manifest in the artists' practice as the reflectionsof their inner and external worlds. Their structural, formal, and conceptualinterpretations signify how they make sense of the world. Accidentalencounters that are not grounded in any specific cause propel the artisttowards distinctive discoveries and tendencies. Artists combine theirintuitive perception of the world with their personal experiences and howthey contextualise their environment, and make it become part of theartwork's creative process.
Intertwined with the notions of travel and tourism, the practice of FranzAckermann is filled with overlapping forms that directly combine imagefragments taken from urban reality. Inspired by cityscapes, brain structuresand spiritual centres, the artist explores globalisation and tourism as partof his artistic discoveries. Travelling from South America to East Asia andexploring the entire world, Ackermann encounters cityscapes that drawattention to both the allure of travel consumption culture and the culturaldecay and remnants of the architecture left behind.
Focusing on the interaction of colours by creating colour fields on canvas,Çiğdem Aky considers depth, texture and colour tone as the fundamentalelements of her works. While exploring the possibilities of abstractions,she anchors intense contrasts within a framework through strong, gesturalbrushstrokes. She strips away the expression from the ideal form, fixesthe object to the form, and investigates the boundaries, conditions, andpossibilities of painting and colour. Aky conveys her observations throughcolours and forms, also perceiving her surroundings through colours. Shepresents intuitive reflections of the urban landscapes or her impressions atcertain hours of the day. Her canvases manifest the world she observes, hermomentary moods, interactions with individuals and the external world, andthe coincidences she encounters.
Seçkin Pirim transforms life, that he perceives it is as repetition andchange, into forms. Identified with aesthetics and minor imperfectionsthat arise during the repetition of this form, his practice evolves along withhis personal life. The minimalist forms of his paper works are based on aninternally driven movement, unfolding side by side with the phases of thislife, and integral part of symbolic meanings. The number of layers, materials,colours, and forms bear hidden clues about Pirim's life and attemptto portray a different illumination and mood, stemming from externalinfluences. They embody the feelings of situations and spaces that havebecome a part of his life by chance.
In her practice, Ebru Uygun focuses on colour, form, and space. In herprevious works, she cuts canvases into strips and re-combines them on anew canvas, while in her recent works, she creates surface landscapes notbound by time and space. In her series referencing the body, she workson free canvas fabric, pouring and combining materials, folding fabrics andallowing them to rest. When they dry, the materials overlap, deteriorate,and interfere with each other, resulting in accidental combinations.
Celebrating its 20th year in 2022, Dirimart is more focused than ever on challenging and revitalising the existing gallery model in Istanbul. Founded in 2002 by Hazer Özil with the intent of exhibiting established and emerging artists both from Turkey and around the world in a context conducive to critical dialogue and cross-pollination, the pivotal concern of the gallery’s program is individual and regional differences while fostering cosmopolitanism and collaboration.
Dirimart cultivates a program premised on conceptualism, political resistance and intellectual rigour. Located in two distinct locations in Beyoğlu, Dolapdere and Pera, the gallery divides its program between established artists, such as Ayşe Erkmen, İnci Eviner, Canan Tolon, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Sarah Morris, Anselm Reyle, Jorinde Voigt, Tomokazu Matsuyama, and Karin Kneffel and emerging artists, such as Çiğdem Aky, Çağla Ulusoy, Berke Yazıcıoğlu, and Ebru Duruman. The gallery, through Dirimart and RES Publications (est. 2007), also continues its well-established series of catalogues, artist books and books on art theory.
