Pg Art Gallery is pleased to host Ayla Turan's solo exhibition titled “Dangerous Games” between the dates of March 21 and April 4.
On the one hand, the icons and symbolic building blocks, nuts and bolts of a male, patriarchal, omnipotent, warring and aggressive universe: Sharp, pointed, cornered, rough cut, dashing, piercing forms and vectors… Muscled, angry, ferocious gods populating The Pantheon… Harpoons, swords, arrows… And while on the other, the smooth, soft, curvy, spherical, version of a maternal, fecund universe of swelling, encapsulating and embracing entities. Quiet, peaceful, amicable, fairy like… Far from the abrasive and irritating pushyness of the Male Kingdom..
For some time now, the sharp, cutting-edge language in Ayla Turan's works has been deliberately suppressed, ignored, and replaced by curves and spherical forms. These round forms, which are also the source, seed, and "egg" of rebirths, are the main building blocks of her sculptures. But still, in this round universe, the most terrible, aggressive, and painful issues are also addressed. This is the adopted method of productive and creative feminine energy to deal with the destructive, warlike and wild world.
For some while now, the artistic cosmos of Ayla Turan is intentionally and very meticulously being purged of all these sharp spikes and corners. Her sculptural forms are getting ever more rounder, more spherical. Akin to the morphology of the ovum, or planets. This is a slowly emerging leitmotif, the keynote of her sculptural statements / artistic language.
In this ovular, globular cosmos, all the harsh and detrimental aspects of human life are debated, analyzed, processed. And even verdicts given. Optimistic and calm and maybe subdued somewhat, yet unfaltering criticism is the essence, the hallmark of this universe.
Have you ever noted that all the classical children’s stories actually tell us horrible, terrible, cruel, unhinging stories? Snow White, Heidi, Girl of the Alps, The Little Match Seller, Little Red Riding Hood...
Very much like like Snow White, Red Riding Hood and Cinderella from fairytales still listened to by children being remembered as cute, sweet, beautiful and optimistic heroes living through incredible tales, these new phase sculptures of Ayla Turan address, criticize and propose solutions to the darkest, tragic and unacceptable issues of the world through this naive, globular but sharp lens, percolated with realistic and fair filters.
You can trace all of our current civilization’s problems in full weight while wandering in the cute, soft and juvenileworld of the 'Dangerous Games' exhibition.
Dangerous Games is the starting point of a new and important stage in Ayla Turan's artistic evolution process.
The artist, who has been working with "touchable" materials and solid objects and a purely three-dimensional space until now, is starting to explore the virtual and the real world amalgamated into a new perceptive state. The conventional 3D augmented into the virtual with her works in this exhibition.
Levent Resul
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Ayla Turan (1973, Hamburg): After completing their education at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Faculty of Fine Arts Department of Sculpture in 1996, the artist produced exhibitions and scultpures for public spaces in many countries such as Turkey, Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, Sweden, Latvia, Serbia, Albania, Israel, South Korea, Dubai, Bahrain, Egypt, India, Syria, Burkina Faso, China, Mexico, Thailand, Japan, and the United States and left enduring works of art.
Turan, production uninterrupted for 25 years, with their sculptures produced using different materials such as marble, granite, metal, bronze and polyester continues their adventure in a creative process that can be characterized with successive, evolving periods.
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