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Nalan Yırtmaç – Name, Place, Animal, Thing

Name: Nalan Yırtmaç – Name, Place, Animal, Thing
Start: 2019-11-15T11:00:00+03:00
End: 2019-12-29T19:00:00+03:00

15/11/2019 @ 11:00 - 29/12/2019 @ 19:00

15 November – 29 December 2019

Opening: Thursday, November 14, 18:30

Nalan Yırtmaç’s solo exhibition Name, Place, Animal, Thing brings together recent works of the artist in various mediums on the ground floor of Depo. In previous works and exhibitions, Yırtmaç dealt with concepts such as urban transformation, urban and human rights, while in this selection she focuses on ecocide, local resistances and migrants’ rights.

In the exhibition, the artist departs from the social and political events in Turkey’s recent past and approaches them through the lens of personal and collective memory. The way she works with these subjects can even be considered diaristic. Some of the works transform into records of the incidents that took place in the worsening political climate of the country since 2015 and the waves of migration that followed. Through focusing on the cases of political and enforced migrants, the artist tackles concepts such as taking shelter and belonging and questions relationships between subjects and spaces. Yırtmaç who often works with stencils on canvas, uses a variety of surfaces in these works in a way that aligns with the conceptual framework. With surfaces that range from curtains to disposed undercoats, the artist brings the personal and the mundane into the exhibition.

Another large body of work in Name, Place, Animal, Thing pertains to the daily encounters artist had in Mexicocity while in residency at R.a.t. Puerto Mitla and the research she conducted there. The artist who carries her interests in social and political matters to this afar geography, contemplates the neighborhood cultures and subcultures there and pursues journalists that became political victims, like she did in previous pieces. Portraits of her neighbors, people she interacted with in everyday life come together with portraits of political figures in her sketchbooks, drawings, watercolors and collages.

As in the children’s game that gives the exhibition its title, subjects from different geographies, cities, public and private places, animals, nature and landscapes are placed side by side in Yırtmaç’s selected works. The exhibition underlines the fact that what is mundane is also political, and serves as a reminder.

Nalan Yırtmaç is an artist and lecturer based in Istanbul. She graduated from the studio of Özer Akbaş in the Painting Department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts Academy. In her works, she deals with social and political issues such as urban transformation, urban rights, neighborhood cultures, human rights and ecocide. She works across various mediums such as painting, drawing, collage, stenciling, printmaking, watercolors, artist books and mural painting and utilizes both traditional and experimental surfaces. She was a member of the Hafriyat collective from 2000 to 2009.