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Lumina Exhibition

Galeri MCRD presents Lumina exhibition of Yücel Kale and Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay consisting of new sculptures and paintings. The artists have a sense of an other-worldly force coming into being. Surrounding their radiant space, their images appear almost as a cosmic constellation.

Information

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 presents new sculptures by master sculptor Yücel Kale and several new digital paintings by Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay.

Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay creates paintings that are characterized by a sense of movement and vibrant luminosity. She is interested in portraying fantasy. The construction of fantastical and multidimensional environments is integral to her practice. The artist produces immersive compositions that borrow from the animated structures of Futurism, and light and color pervade every aspect of her work. Cagatay’s visual lexicon originates also from the Surrealist impetus. Her radiant paintings are marked by tonal and chromatic shifts that operate in concert. She is always attuned to the ways that color and light merge with thought itself. Approaching painting as an experience in immersive subjectivity, she builds finely wrought narratives. She corrals diverse influences within a signature language, dancing between figuration and abstraction, construction and deconstruction, positive and negative space, spontaneity and control.As in much of her work, the theatrical and the intricate verge on the surrealistic, and she is interested in powerful images that strike chords embedded deep in the reservoirs of our unconscious. Cagatay's preoccupation with the infinite and sublime dates back to her earliest analogue paintings from the 2007s to her digital paintings starting from 2012s.

Galeri MCRD

Jan 20-April 20, 2022

About the Artist

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.