Sevil Dolmacı Gallery is thrilled to announce Leb-i Derya, Mehmet Uygun’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.
Shaped through a long and sustained process of production, this exhibition brings together the artist’s fantastical world that he constructs between dream and reality. Uygun’s practice is nourished by memories, images formed in childhood, objects, and the silent language of colors.
This dreamlike narrative, which begins with fiction in the house where he spent his childhood on the shores of the Golden Horn, questions how unreal beings can coexist side by side with reality. The well beneath his family’s two-story wooden house, the imaginary connection of this well to Istanbul and the Golden Horn, the city walls, historical structures, parks, the seashore, the opposite shore, boats, and people fishing… All these elements carry the traces of memories layered over forty years of the artist’s practice and of dreams transferred from those memories onto canvas.
Fairy tales, mythological stories, and fables he heard from his grandmother and grandfather enable Uygun to go beyond the real world and build a new universe in his imagination. The characters in this universe, no matter how different they are from one another, seem to share the same emotions and speak the same language. The artist presents a riot of colors with his brush as if telling a fairy tale, inviting the viewer on both a visual and emotional journey.
The fact that most of the works are untitled is a conscious choice. Uygun wants the viewer to give the work a name and to form a personal bond with it. In this way, imagination becomes a space in which not only the artist but also the viewer is included in the process of creation. Leb-i Derya is an invitation that aims to establish an intimate relationship with the viewer, going beyond mere looking; it calls on us to dream and to journey together.
In this world, fish fly like birds outside the water; people line up side by side and lock arms; contrasting colors come together in harmony. The figures carry a mystery that draws the viewer in. Although they appear unreal, they approach the viewer with a poetic language and open up an intimate space. These figures, never seen before yet somehow familiar, seem like natural parts of Uygun’s universe.
In this fantastical world, an atmosphere purified of evil prevails; joy, music, and color come to the fore. Uygun’s paintings carry a sincere and humorous tone; they quietly speak to society and to the individual. The figures do not speak directly; perhaps for this reason, they say even more. Meaning is not presented openly; it is hidden within silence. At first glance, the viewer may not fully grasp what they are seeing; yet the image gradually settles in the mind, grows, and multiplies.
Mermaids, birds, captains, and whales carry the viewer into a fairy-tale world. Alongside surreal imaginary creatures, a figure playing the new brings the heritage of musical culture together with a dreamlike universe, creating a fairy-tale moment and presenting cultural heritage to the viewer through instruments. This work also refers to the artist’s previous instrument series and points to an international cultural journey.
This universe, swaying between the real and the fantastic, is in fact the breathing form of a dream we have imagined. Uygun’s paintings represent a return both to his personal past and to collective memory.
Leb-i Derya can be visited at Sevil Dolmacı Istanbul Gallery until March 1.
