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Gallery co-founder Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay reflects on  the themes and motifs of Yücel Kale's and her own work, and the context in which they were made:This exhibition  includes several works on paper by Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay and sculptures by master sculptor Yücel Kale.

In her technicolor works, Cagatay deals with swaths of color, which she orchestrates into phantasmagoric  yet deeply meditative works. Her translucent color planes are influenced by the limpid light of İstanbul, and the artist uses separate touches of interwoven pigment resulting in a greater vibrancy of color.Her manner of weaving and layering small brushstrokes  achieve a tapestry-like paint surface of complementary and contrasting hues. Cagatay’s work presents an apparently spontaneous- but in fact carefully plotted- accumulation of brushstrokes. Staccato arcs and dashes of marigold, mauve, dark berry, and brown seem to leap off the canvas. Colors overlap and mix on the picture’s surface, dense paint merging with liquid drips. She meticulously applies each color, attentive to the relationships between them and to the weight of each brushstroke. In her abstractions, she detaches color from physical description and uses it independently. The artist's work creates chains of association in the juxtapositions of dots borrowing Signac's sharp eye for compositional references. Cagatay works through the broad spectrum of gestural-abstract formal languages in order to open up each painting to surprising new possibilities.Her inclination toward opulence and extensive allover painting derives from her exuberant nature.

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Galeri MCRD Online

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 diplomats 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 a finance management 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. Cagatay’s yearning to wed the eternal with the coming day, and her devotion to constant questioning pushed her to paint for a long time before exhibiting her work: her preoccupation with analogue and digital painting in relation to representational iconographies spans a decade. She preferred to have her inaugural exhibition with the gallery she co-founded; and starting with All Arts Istanbul fair in 2013, she had exhibited her work both solo or in group at Galeri MCRD at Contemporary Istanbul 2014- 2019 and in Scope New York 2020.