UNIVERSE BETWEEN LIGHT AND MEMORY BY LEIF TRENKLER AT SEVIL DOLMACI GALLERY: “COSMIC CHANGE”

Sevil Dolmacı Gallery is hosting “Cosmic Change,” the solo exhibition of German contemporary painter Leif Trenkler. One of the leading representatives of the “New Figuration” movement, the artist explores the fragile relationship between light, architecture, and nature through a poetic visual language in the exhibition, on view from June 10 to July 15, 2026.

“Cosmic Change” constructs a new visual universe centered on the relationship between light, architecture, and memory. Drawing inspiration from cities such as Palm Springs, Los Angeles, Miami, and Saint-Tropez, Trenkler invites viewers into atmospheres oscillating between reality and dream through pools, terraces, star-filled nights, and modernist houses. Starting from real locations, the artist creates imaginary images and constructs threshold-like spaces where time itself seems suspended.

In Trenkler’s paintings, light does not merely illuminate what is visible; it creates a distinct atmosphere, intensifies emotion, and slows down the gaze. The vibrating transitions of pink, purple, blue, and turquoise merge with reflections on the water’s surface, star-lit nights, and sharp architectural lines to create a world that is both seductive and fragile. Within this selection, the house, the pool, the window, and the horizon line appear not only as compositional elements, but also as carriers of porous boundaries between interior and exterior, privacy and spectacle, serenity and alienation.

At the center of Trenkler’s practice lies the tension between organic nature and man-made structures. His spaces are not merely aesthetic compositions; they become metaphors for humanity’s distance from nature, its desire for control, and the fragile sense of tranquility created by modern life. In these paintings, where the figure sometimes withdraws and at other times appears only as a distant trace, silence itself emerges as an active theme.

Born in Wiesbaden in 1960, the artist currently lives and works in Cologne. He studied at Städelschule and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Since the 1990s, Leif Trenkler has been recognized as one of the early representatives of Germany’s “New Figuration” movement, consistently developing his practice through oil painting on wooden surfaces. While investigating the effects of light and shadow on architecture, landscape, and the figure, he also deliberately blurs the distinction between reality and fiction.

Drawing from the tradition of Romanticism, the artist reinterprets the psychological atmosphere of contemporary life through modernist architectural structures, silent landscapes, and artificial constructions of light. Scenes that initially appear peaceful and flawless gradually transform into layered narratives on the transience of time, loneliness, and the idealized notion of happiness.

“Cosmic Change” reveals that Leif Trenkler’s paintings do not merely present landscapes; they construct a world in which light transforms into memory, architecture becomes an emotional shell, and beauty emerges as a silence that could disappear at any moment.

“Cosmic Change” will be on view at the historic Villa Ipranosyan, home of Sevil Dolmacı Gallery, until July 15, 2026.