Dirimart is delighted to present a groundbreaking group show that brings together the works of Ayşe Erkmen, Osamu Kobayashi, Anselm Reyle, Canan Tolon, Çağla Ulusoy, Jorinde Voigt, and Peter Zimmermann. Taking place between 17 June and 30 July, Living in Colour is an exhibition not only sets the stage for Dirimart’s continuing legacy in the contemporary art scene but also foreshadows a captivating prelude to the new season’s artistic endeavours. Each artist in the exhibition, with their unique creative expressions, unfolds the spirit of exploration and innovation, pushing the limits of their respective mediums.
Ayşe Erkmen’s approach to creating artwork has always been playful since the early stages of her career. Water pipes dancing, tigers having a vacation in a former factory, mediaeval sculptures flying with helicopters and people walking on an invisible bridge are just some of them. Employing everyday materials to create profound and memorable experiences, her ability to transform ordinary spaces into extraordinary realms of contemplation and reflection solidifies her position as one of the most innovative and influential artists. Her selected works for the show is the representative of her practice characterised by a delicate balance between simplicity and complexity. With a keen eye for the space itself, Ayşe Erkmen creates artworks that challenge conventional notions and engage viewers in unique ways.
Osamu Kobayashi’s bold and vibrant paintings delve into emotional landscapes, mesmerising viewers with their dynamic compositions and expressive use of colour. His paintings at the show reveal his artistic process as a captivating power struggle as his bold and vibrant colours resist his initial direction, yearning to venture elsewhere. Embracing this dynamic interplay, he persistently pulls them into new directions, resulting in the paintings often emerging triumphant. Kobayashi’s works exhibit a reductive form, compositionally centred, and employ a spontaneous and intuitive interplay of colours, shapes, and textures, creating visual dualities that explore contrasting forces, such as chance versus control, organic versus geometric, and warm versus cool.
Anselm Reyle’s burlap canvases at the show are a dynamic exploration of Modernism, skilfully blending convention, critique, and re-invention. With bold brushstrokes, vibrant colours, and juxtapositions of form, he creates dynamic visual compositions that captivate the viewer’s attention. Reyle’s unique approach breathes new life into everyday materials, offering a fresh perspective on their potential as artistic mediums. Incorporating remnants of consumer society, discarded materials, symbols of urbanity, and industrial change, he visually transforms found objects, contributing to the discourse on abstraction and its relevance in contemporary painting amidst the resurgence of figurative art.
Canan Tolon’s practice encompasses paintings and installations, exploring the visualisation of space through dimensions like imagination, memory, and time. With a focus on the interplay between nature and architecture through repetitive scraping and slicing techniques, she creates compositions that blur the line between reality and illusion, reflecting the chaotic and unsettling nature of human transformation within an ever-changing environment. Also working in natural materials, Tolon allows the influence of outdoor conditions to bring a sense of vitality to her artwork. Her selected abstract paintings for the show, characterised by subtle layering and ethereal hues, transport viewers to realms of tranquillity and introspection.
Having moved between different cultures throughout her life, Çağla Ulusoy draws inspiration from cultural clashes and reflects them on her canvas and jute works where she creates layered and ambiguous spaces. In her explorations of the impact of history and traditions on her consciousness, she reinterprets the images from her past to evoke a postcard effect. In the exhibited paintings at the show, colour takes the central stage, creating immersive spaces born from her recollections. Balancing abstraction and representation, her works evoke profound emotions with a poetic touch. She crafts a body of work that lingers in the mind, transporting viewers into the realm of her recollections, while encouraging them to explore their connections to the world.
Jorinde Voigt merges philosophy and a quest for objective understanding, transforming various elements like sound, movement, time, form, perception, and science into a cohesive representational schema through intricate signs, lines, numbers, words, and collage elements. In Voigt’s creative practice, this happens almost like the archaeology of an impulse: she first conducts a personal, in-depth exploration of why this impulse exists, then presents her findings to an audience allowing them to fictionalise the unknown. The audience hereby witnesses a process that is autogenic, brings the exterior into question, faces inwards, and makes sense of the external.
Peter Zimmermann’s innovative approach to painting incorporates digital technology and resin and challenges traditional notions of representation and perception, resulting in visually stunning works. His paintings reinterpret the traditional act of painting in relation to Modernism and the Colour Field movement. The artist begins working by gathering images he has collected either physically or by scanning and then deforms these visuals on his computer. Images that have now become unrecognisable are transferred onto the canvas and given form employing colourful resin poured on them. The compositions of Zimmermann, famous for the use of epoxy for more than 20 years, can be considered a kind of alchemical interaction between the work and the viewer.
Location: Dirimart Dolapdere
