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Gallery co-founder Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay reflects on  the themes and motifs of  her own work, and the context in which they were made:

In this exhibition, Cagatay's surreal landscapes characterized by luminescence of color reflecting the artists’ sense of awe in the grandeur of nature meet Kale's fantastic hybrid figures  between nature and supernatural. When it's Dream Time, both artists come up with otherworldly compositions commenting ironically on human condition. Yücel Kale's sculptures present a world where the natural and supernatural go hand in hand. His work reminds  the fairy painting of the Victorian era, whose scenes unfolding with an interest in otherworldliness, with an impulse to cleanse the doors of perception. His lifelong fascination with the natural world reflects in his work.

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Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay's preoccupation with the infinite and the sublime -to be searched in pattern and colour - dating back to her  earliest  works are continued in her new paintings which include otherworldly dream landscapes as before. The artist believes that "as we go into an uncertain future, one thing we can predict is that the landscape will continue to claim the attention of artists and writers and that alongside anxiety and unease, beauty and wonder will be there too." She thinks that the beholder, on "entering" a picture of her would read from form to form, would move inwards by tone colour to tone colour. All this without consciously thinking about what the picture might represent: that should be left to filter in gradually, subconsciously.In its controlled movement over each part of the picture plane, the eye would be responding to the rhythms and relations deliberately created by the artist- would be listening to the music of the picture; 'chords' of colour are audible in many pictures: for example, cadmium yellow, violet and indigo blue at In a Heart Beat. She is fascinated by anything futuristic, and is influenced by the jet-age aesthetic itself.

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In her practice colour creates structure, spatial recession partly because colour instinctively built up in the act of painting.Her colour combinations reflect a visual and emotional complex, drawing a wide range of colours to express subtle, but precise nuances.She attempts to create magical Futuristic cityscapes with visual audacity. Drawing on the possibilities of free invention encouraged by Surrealism, Cagatay developed a style that drew from highly personalized and psychological references.She deployed these motifs for Futurist ends: the dissected planes implied dynamism and the straight lines became “force-lines” showing motion.Cagatay integrates the Cubist use of  straight lines that divide spatial planes into her more expressionistic style. Cagatay's paintings run counter to conventional viewing habits and genre-based thinking in a number of ways. She combines painting with digital painting, using digital means to brush both the wrong way, and happily overstepping boundaries of taste.The artist  remains true to the traditions of abstract painting, her sweeping gestures occasionally referring to the heyday of abstract painting. The surreal undertones are pushed even further in her figuration. Her themes also draw on surrealism. She tries to come-up with new pictures-pictures that confound viewing patterns- to surprise herself with and continue dreaming; and in this Kale joins her,  endeavoring to create a 'new' reality that provokes imagination.

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Yasemin Cengiz Cagatay grew up in Istanbul with an art teacher mother among paintings and art history books. She learned painting as a child, this leading her 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 politicians and artists of the country. The French influence she received in this centuries old school with a blend of French and Turkish curricula reflects in her paintings. She has  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 and at Contemporary Istanbul 2014- 2019, and also at Scope New York 2020. Her Painting Other Universes solo exhibition at Scope NY has been selected as Editor's Choice by  the Online Viewing Room hosting the fair among 54 galleries participating to Scope NY 2020.

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