Çiğdem Aky: Capturing the Day

Dirimart is delighted to announce Capturing the Day, the first solo exhibition of Çiğdem Aky at the gallery. The exhibition features the artist’s recent paintings centred around the theme of light, which were produced in Istanbul and Munich. In these works, she offers a colour-centric style that follows a single composition by observing the mesmerizing colour transitions during sunrise and sunset.

Çiğdem Aky achieves a singular form that is rooted in the figurative tradition while embodying depth, structure, and tonality. On her journey towards abstraction, she fixes the object to a form as she explores the limits, conditions, and potentials of painting and colour. Her repetitive and impassive idiosyncratic language reveals emotions through dynamic and introspective colour fields. In other words, she communicates her observations through the medium of colour.

Aky’s paintings bring together gestural elements and geometric structures to offer a visually captivating encounter for the viewer. The rhythmic arrangement of colours and brushstrokes creates a dynamic interplay between different components of the artwork. She considers colour as a primary and independent mode of expression to convey this experience. Colours have their own energy and meaning, serving the purpose of conveying thoughts and emotions. Her investigation of colour is apparent in the curvilinear areas that surround the central, column-like rectangular structure. These areas highlight the interaction of colours, demonstrating how they relate and influence each other within the composition. She intuitively and spontaneously constructs the relationship between colour and gesture while maintaining a methodical approach, allowing for a seamless fusion of both elements.

Among Aky’s exhibited works, the autonomous and impactful colour fields, encapsulate the world she observes, her present mood, and her interactions with others and the external environment. Within these works, the rhythmic colour arrangements encompass an inexhaustible spectrum of possibilities, each offering a unique and multifaceted perception for the viewer, who is invited to focus on their emotions. Her formal language explores the relationship between colour and gesture, offering intuitive projections of urban landscapes or impressions of certain moments in time, such as different hours of the day. She perceives her surroundings through the lens of colour and while maintaining a consistent composition, she creates abstract versions of the overwhelmingly emotional state of a “day.” With bold and self-assured brushstrokes, Aky develops a distinctive style, reinterpreting reality in her own unique manner.

The artist, who previously left her works untitled or simply numbered them, has recently started to title her pieces by drawing inspiration from films, songs, expressions from her daily life, personal experiences, or literature. Aky now derives the titles of her works from a range of sources, including seasons, the changing light conditions of different times of the day, nature, and places. When viewed together with their titles, the works can evoke a range of emotions, from melancholy or serenity to intense passion and excitement. Through her depictions of natural forms, Aky presents a fresh expression of form and colour that aims to convey emotions.