Ekrem Yalçindağ

Ekrem Yalçindağ (*1964 Gölbaşı, TR) takes his inspiration from the backstreets of Istanbul and Berlin, using only colour and painting techniques developed by the old masters to capture his vision on canvas. The titles of his works reference either the number of colours used or the inspiration source. Employing a pictorial language that spans East and West, Yalçindağ's art is influenced by the Islamic world, where a religious ban on figurative imagery led to the early widespread use of ornamentation. Originally used for embellishment in applied art, Yalçindağ turns the decorative form into his sole subject, translated into leaf-shaped dabs of colour or concentric circles. But his work also engages with the legacy of Western abstraction. For him, the expressiveness of a colour field can be contemplated only in conjunction with the artist's brushstrokes and the texture they produce. His pictures nevertheless retain a sharp and rigorous composition which, combined with the textured surface of the paint, creates a sense of movement that shimmers in the eye of the viewer. Yalçindağ thus merges the notions of op art and minimalism with the conceptual nature of the textured and visible colour application.