Synthetic Lands: An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Yasemin Kaçkar-Demirel

Tuesday, May 23 – Saturday, June 10, 2006
Gallery hours: 11:00 am – 7:00 pm daily
Reception: Tuesday, May 23, 2006
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

The Gallery at The Marmara - Manhattan
301 East 94th Street
(at Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10128

Free admission

“Yasemin Kaçkar - Demirel’s city landscapes make a metaphor for today’s metropolitan life: despite all the chaos, noise, and inequality, the cities offer a fulfilling and generally pleasant life. Her depiction of chaos helps create a richer urban texture and a whimsical place. Kaçkar- Demirel renders the urban texture using different shapes, planes, and forms. Architectural forms certainly make up the majority. The infinite masses of buildings and patterns extending to the edges recall the shantytowns of Istanbul, her native city, or the tri-state area that envelopes Manhattan, where the artist currently lives. But her use of lines, drips, swooshes of paint go deeper in explaining not only the diverse landscape of the city, but also the mood swings of any city and its inhabitants. The color palette of pastels and vivid colors reflect her ultimately optimistic view of the city.

Kaçkar - Demirel keeps the viewers’ attention by having their eyes meander through the diverse forms and textures. Another way to connect with the viewer is through her use of famous architectural forms and pop-culture references. Her references, however, certainly are not overt enough to please tourists. One can almost recognize what seems to be a similarity to a familiar site, but the rest of the details leave them unsure of their convictions. This mystery is another factor why one can spend a lot of time on each of her works. Similar to the artist’s native Istanbul, one is never sure whether the city is in the east or the west. In the frame where the Mediterranean evil eye is shining over the buildings, there is something resembling a minaret. Yet on the same picture, there are also references to the peculiar building-top water reservoirs that can only be found in New York.

The mixture of references comes from a collection of Kaçkar - Demirel’s memories of all the cities she has visited and the feelings they evoked on her. No wonder big cities are her biggest occupation.”

Defne Aydintasbas Chaffin

“Every place and every memory of a place is fragmental and can be broken down to its constituents. Synthetic Lands revolves around this theme of creating eclectic visual realms and journeys through reconstructing and re-mapping my physical and mental travels. The destinations can be familiar or unknown, boundless or limited, conquered or yet to be discovered.”

Yasemin Kaçkar - Demirel

Our special thanks to Mine Özpinar and Zishan Ugurlu, The Gallery at The Marmara - Manhattan.