Dirimart is pleased to present Too early Too late, an exhibition by Canan Tolon at its London gallery. Revisiting an enquiry whose conceptual foundations were first laid in 1986 and which took shape in her Still Lifes installations of the early 1990s, the exhibition brings together four decades of the artist's reflections on nature, time and humanity's relationship with its environment. In this return to earlier concerns, the questions articulated at an early stage are accompanied by an equally significant sense of how the hope for change that once sustained them has gradually eroded.
'Too early', in the title, refers to Tolon's earlier belief that drawing attention to the destruction of nature and the exploitation of resources could contribute to meaningful change. Her efforts to bring these concerns into her work were underpinned by the conviction that making danger visible could foster a shared awareness, and that such awareness could, in turn, lead to a willingness to act. The sense of lateness that finds expression in the exhibition's title, by contrast, arises from the failure of the concerns voiced over the past four decades to receive an adequate response. As the distance between recognising a threat and assuming responsibility for it continues to widen, the hope that change might still be possible gives way to the weight of belatedness. Between 'early' and 'late' lies the erosion of the belief that humanity still has time.
Tolon works with nature, allowing its particular possibilities to enter into her artistic process. Rusting, germination and decay alter the relationships between the materials she brings together over time. Water, air and humidity all play a part in determining how a work takes shape. The stillness implied by the title Still Lifes is therefore unstable from the outset: the materials, contrary to the conventions of the still-life genre, continue to live, interact and transform. While the artist's arrangements make encounters between materials possible, they cannot determine all the outcomes of those encounters. The simultaneity of making and unmaking precludes the possibility of fixing works in a completed state; the duration of the exhibition itself becomes an interval in which the process of creation continues. What the viewer encounters is a temporary cross-section of an unfolding process, one with a before and an after, continuing even in the absence of the viewer's gaze.
This artistic process also calls into question the assumption that humanity can exercise dominion over nature. In destroying the natural world, humans overlook the fact that they, and the structures they construct, remain subject to those very same natural processes. Drawing boundaries, claiming ownership of land or covering it with buildings do not place us beyond their reach. Iron rusts, structures erode, roots find new paths; systems that humanity expects to endure are transformed by the processes of change that continue to unfold within them. In Tolon's work, the coexistence of growth and decay makes visible not only the continuity of life, but also the loss of what humanity assumes it can preserve.
This relationship with the earth extends, in the exhibition, to questions of shelter, migration and belonging. The belongings we take with us when leaving a place become a means of maintaining our connection to the life we have left behind. A familiar object, a memory or a handful of soil can carry our sense of attachment to a place. Yet belonging to a place does not guarantee that we can remain there. The division of land through property boundaries, the diminishing availability of housing and the displacement of people from the places they inhabit constitute the social conditions that compel individuals to carry their lives with them. In Tolon's work, everyday objects accompany both the effort to maintain a connection with what has been left behind and the attempt to establish a life elsewhere. A landscape contained within a suitcase and extended infinitely through mirrors opens up a whole world within a portable space, while also revealing the tension between the expansiveness of what is seen and the human need for a place in which one can genuinely settle.
The meaning carried by the suitcase also resonates with the artist's personal journey. In 1991, Tolon travelled from San Francisco to Istanbul with the materials for her forthcoming exhibition at Maçka Sanat Galerisi packed into suitcases. She was considering leaving architecture and devoting herself entirely to art if the exhibition proved successful. Looking back, this journey was more than a means of preparing for an exhibition; it marked a turning point in the artist's decision about how to shape her life. The materials carried in those suitcases were also fragments of a world of ideas that would continue to inform her practice in the years that followed.
In the exhibition, the juxtaposition of sketches produced in the 1980s and 1990s with new installations brings together, within a single space, the transformations these ideas have undergone over four decades. Too early Too late revisits the questions posed in the artist's earlier practice at a moment when the belief that articulating them could bring about change has itself been put to the test. The materials that rust, grow and fade throughout the exhibition remind us that change does not stand still while decisions are deferred. The 'too late' of the title speaks to the erosion of hope for change as responsibility is continually postponed to the future.
Too early Too late is on view at Dirimart London from 17 November to 19 December 2026.
