“Where the dream is between the tree and seeing the tree,
On which side the river flows between life and the living.”
Fernando Pessoa
Selçuk Demirel’s new solo exhibition “Now” opens at Galeri Nev İstanbul on 4th of April. The exhibition featuring Demirel’s latest drawings and illustrations can be visited till 3rd of May.
As John Berger indicates: “When Selçuk observes something, he takes out a notebook, and jots down, as a philosopher noted down ideas or a poet metaphors.” In his notebook in which he draws what he observes, Demirel notes down the following lines for the exhibition “Now”: “During the time period I worked for this exhibition, everyday, I thought that the feelings I experienced while I’m drawing these at the moment, painting them, thinking about them are the ones really count; I thought that there is neither yesterday nor tomorrow... I thought that “now” which will become yesterday in a short while is as long and substantial as the lifespan of a butterfly.”
In the preface he wrote for Demirel’s recent illustration books “Defile” Orhan Pamuk states: “Mind has always been at the origin of Selçuk Demirel’s drawing universe. Just like following a literaryphilosophical text, we know that mind is a beginning. Mind, which is the focus of painting –the head and brain in the painting-, develops an attitude towards other corners of the painting, the skyline out there, tress, streets, houses and all else. While our eyes are busy with stuff in the corners of the painting, of the composition, we also grasp that mind problematizes everything and everything is a problem of or even an extension of mind. Mind-external world duality resting in the heart of Western philosophy history, this insolvable tension, turns into a common landscape making us smile. For this reason the pleasure of looking at Selçuk’s paintings also gives us a consoling peace.”
Some of the illustrations in Demirel’s recent book “Defile” published by YKY last year can be seen at the exhibition “Now”. For the illustrations in this book M. Mehmet Aktan says: “We see that in each of his work Demirel penetrates deeper into this being called as human. We understand that Demirel intends to get hold of human once again. Demirel narrates the stories of living straight as looking awry, making one’s own way while looking back, being able to see like dreaming. Through displaying various states of existence or human as a being, the famous illustrator leaves the doors of a world made of a thousand colors ajar.
A selection Demirel’s drawings and illustrations appeared in press between 1974-2014 can be seen at the exhibition “A vol d’oiseau” organized by Institut Français Istanbul between 2nd of April and 31st of August.
