Book Launch & Exhibition
ARK KÜLTÜR, Istanbul
Opening: 26 November 2019, Tuesday, 19.00
Presentations:
19.10 Alistair Hicks, Independent Writer and Curator, London
19.30 Dr. Necmi Sönmez, Düsseldorf
Proportional Line Kemal Seyhan Last Decade, the monograph published by worldwide known Skira Editions, Milan, brings together Seyhan’s abstract works from his last period. The book, a brand-new series of paintings and sculptures of the artist were starting points of this presentation. The book launch and the exhibition examine Seyhan’s belief in the transformative power of pure lines and enigmatic structures.
Kemal Seyhan is a painter in love with looking at structures. He searches for the brief encounter, that fleeting moment when a small detail of everyday life, a lonely line, a graffitti, a lavish colour on the road open his life to him, consequently, to his abstract paintings. His vocabulary consists largely of proportional lines, gouged surfaces, linear marks, hidden symbols, signs, calligraphic tracery, and emotional colours. What he has lined on, scratched out, or incised into surface of his work, ranges from legible transcription to illegible inscription.
The exhibition focuses on Seyhan’s recent works (paintings, wall objects, floor sculptures) between 2019 and 2020. Breaking the narrative character of colours with the sharpness of his investigation, the artist formed in these experimental works a polymorph structure with graphite in different amalgams, without betraying his abstract narration. The source of this structure is the variety of forms one comes across looking at Seyhan’s work closely. The reason why spectators instantly figure out what every object and form represent once they step into their world, is their resemblance to familiar elements (trees, dry leaves, puddles with no apparent source, sudden lights, shadows). The exhibition examines these visual quality, achieved through diligent work, placing abstract textures in the focus of different meanings, gained a more serene and confident character.
Photography: Murat Germen
