SANATORIUM is hosting Merve Şendil’s second solo exhibition in the gallery titled The Things Behind Our Darkness between 3 November – 16 December 2023. The exhibition includes works that convey the artist’s struggle against the meaninglessness in daily life with abstract and concrete elements based on her own world of perception. Produced using oil painting and lace techniques, these works refer to Şendil’s productions since the 2000s.
In The Things Behind Our Darkness, Şendil displays visual and emotional contrasts that reach back to the inner voices of individuals. This approach, in which “darkness” marks the starting point of the exhibition as a metaphor, shows the artist’s research to find the images behind the visible through different mediums. While the oil paintings on 2×2 cm squares show moments from Şendil’s personal world pixel by pixel; her lace works, which exist in a similar grid system, bring the lyrics with social reflections taken from alternative music productions in the Underscene Project series since 2007 to a new plane.
Signifying a crucial resorting point in Merve Şendil’s artistic production, The Things Behind Our Darkness seeks new forms of stance in the face of political and social developments with the help of words and images. Lyrics from alternative bands embroidered on lace and pixelated works placed in baroque frames manifest the artist’s search for a method of existence between opposites.
Press release from SANATORIUM
