Artworks act as a mirror to major events in society. Are you ready to explore emotions with art? Esra Gülmen’s first solo exhibition in Turkey, "Don’t Play with My Emotions," invites visitors to Istanbul’s Pilevneli gallery in the Dolapdere neighborhood to see the world in the light of the current contemporary life and popular culture.

Sometimes art offers us new feelings or serves as a direct way to change our thinking and ourselves. We need art to connect with others and to understand ourselves, our relationships and ongoing social strife.

The title of Gülmen’s solo show, "Don't Play With My Emotions," actually shows us the artist’s inspiration from people, human psychology and problems. Utilizing all the apparatus of contemporary life and popular culture, such as streets, posters, social media, conversations, music, lyrics, movies and books, Gülmen makes us think about these two phenomena. While she tries to understand the concepts and emotions of contemporary life and popular culture with various plays, the artist also encourages us to contemplate them as well.

We may witness that the simplest images and ideas sometimes offer the most profound answers and anecdotes. As an example of this, "Don't Play with My Emotions" also creates a space where Gülmen plays with her own emotions and offers the visitors a playground. In this playground, she makes use of different media and techniques beyond the conventional. Considering unusual everyday objects and musical instruments as canvas surfaces, she plays with both media and concepts. The surface area she chooses to work on supports the meaning of the work and the concept and emotion she questions. In the temporary fiction that she thus constructs, Gülmen invites visitors to reflect on their feelings, habits, ways to love and be loved.

The theme and idea of the exhibition are clearly seen in the title. Gülmen’s work challenges how we perceive and react to our surroundings and encounters. For such an aim, sometimes she personalizes the most familiar discourses in popular culture, at other times anonymizes a personal phrase of her own.

The stunning exhibition invites us back into a post-lockdown world where we seek to connect with experiences and objects that genuinely feed our souls. The uncomplicated, whimsical style of Gülmen has become as essential as it is ubiquitous in a world in dire need of joy, escape and fancy.

Gülmen’s most comprehensive solo exhibition to date, "Don’t Play with My Emotions," can be seen on the first, second and third floors of Pilevneli until May 28.