The gallery co-founder Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay examines the themes and motifs of the exhibition and the context in which it was made: 

Moving effortlessly between abstraction and figuration, the imagined and the real; the paintings in this exhibition are depicting a world in which indications of specific place or time are absent. A poetics of free-association unites the works. All three artists come from different backgrounds - Alexandre Dujardin from Ecole des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, Alpagrif from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay from Bosphorus University-; but they have a lot in common: their works share a surreal element, a love of nature: Dujardin’ s exquisite flowers, butterflies and figures form a brain, and meet Y.C.Cagatay’s otherworldly insects or humanized trees living in a parallel world; and Alpagrif’s surreal creatures navigating the seas under full moon.

With tinges of Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics, they bring an ethereal sensibility to their paintings. Their compositions denote art historical foundations in romanticism, while also offering contemporary metaphors into the depths of human mind. They all weave together elaborate narratives that entwine together the legend of the past with a glimpse of a possible future. All works’ imagery springs from the artists’ imagination, and reflect a belief in the enduring vitality of beauty; and drawing and painting as a primary form of visual communication. As contemporary artists, they are outside the confines of manifesto-driven art, and they are working in a mindset where “everything is possible”, and imagination has no boundaries. They draw or paint with their mind’s eye, and their “Epiphanies”, sudden intuitive perceptions into the essential meanings of their preoccupations, constitute the main theme of this exhibition based on the idea that artists depict these very epiphanies in most of their works.

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In this exhibition the artists invite visitors into an alternate universe of male and female characters, hybrid beings, and fantastical landscapes, challenging traditional art histories, mythologies, and conventional techniques of  remembering. As an artist, they think about the desire, and continual longing they have had over the years to make meaning of the world around them through materials. And they all have a kind of wonder, but also a kind of devotion that lies in that very fragile pursuit. All have a the distinct visual language that they hone, a form of introspective image-making, marrying an interrogation of the gaze with a distinct form of ghostly surrealism. Displaying a kind of melancholy romanticism, they want to evoke  a plane of existence just beyond tangible reach.While their image are conceptually grounded, there is also something inherently joyous at play.

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