Located in İzmir province’s Bayraklı district, Folkart Gallery has recently begun to host a new and assertive exhibition. Reflections of Turkish literary master, writer, screenwriter and critic Selim İleri’s prose adventure and master painter Ali Kotan’s works inspired by İleri met art enthusiasts at the gallery in an exhibit titled "Gece Sirenleri" (Night Sirens).

A total 85 works take place in the much-talked-about exhibition, the opening ceremony of which was attended by distinguished guests from the business world.

Speaking at the ceremony, Folkart Board Chairman Mesut Sancak said, "Selim İleri's writing adventure turned into paintings with Ali Kotan's brush. Ali Kotan's paintings came to life again with the words of Selim İleri."

Folkart Gallery Advisory Board Chairman Doğan Hızlan also pointed out that the exhibition brings together two different disciplines of art.

"I should mention that the previous original works of Folkart Gallery have been important in the identity of the gallery. The gallery’s works are both international and pioneering. They are, at the same time, very important in terms of showing how a gallery perceives its responsibilities in art life and how it fulfills them properly," the journalist said.

An author and a painter together

One of the most valuable features of the exhibition is the joint works of an author and painter. While one of them is a kind of lexicologist, the other is an imagist. While the first one deals with the deep meaning behind the visuals, the latter reads between the lines. Kotan works with paints and brushes; İleri uses a pen or a keyboard.

In one of his poems, Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet asks Turkish painter Abidin Dino whether he can paint happiness. This time, an artist paints what an author writes. In return, the author also puts down this artist's images on his canvases on paper.

Ali Kotan’s paintings created from the texts of Selim İleri and İleri's works inspired by Kotan's paintings create an impact. With this influence, both the visitors to the exhibition and the artists surely enrich their sophisticated experience. When the artists try an interdisciplinary work in the exhibit, the audience is inevitably led to question some things. For example, "Can the painter recognize his images among words?" or "Can the author have his words turned into colors?"

The works for "Gece Sirenleri," which is a total Folkart Gallery production, were started by project director Fahri Özdemir nearly three years ago. The exhibition, which will open a new dimension in the memory of the audience, was opened to visits on Oct. 18 and will be open until Jan. 19, 2020. The exhibit can be visited for free Tuesday through Friday.

Joint dance of brush, pen

Folkart Gallery’s 14th exhibition "Gece Sirenleri" is the interaction of two different art fields with each other. For the show, where art enthusiasts will have a chance to witness and examine the relation of two art branches closely, Selim İleri and Ali Kotan have worked for three long years. İleri, a very important figure of the Turkish literary world, and Kotan, a master brush of painting, describe this project as "the struggle of existence and nothingness of the text and image against the world."

The exhibition, which is a testimony of good and beautiful images and letters, shows the stance of the two artists against life. This joint show, in which the two artists carry the audience to a completely different line of awareness, also, in a sense, allows us to face the pain we suffer in life. In the joint dance of pencil and brush, the exhibition represents the shared intensity of an enthusiastic imagination and the world of purity and cleanliness. The two master figures offer what they see and perceive in their own art branches to the audience with different interpretations.