A short walk from Kuzguncuk pier, through the ascending hall of plane trees up İcadiye Street, the main avenue of the neighborhood, Mona Art is open in more ways than one. It is a gallery of modern and contemporary painters from everywhere. One walks her dog in the neighborhood, another painted with Picasso in Paris.

Its entranceway facade is a modest gray, situated by a "kıraathane," an old-time cafe for mostly over-the-hill men who wile away the day like news junkies with tea-stained teeth and yellowed tobacco-heavy mustaches. Next door, the eccentric antiques dealer Muhayyer is known for eschewing capitalism altogether, as he gifts historic collectables only to certain guests who accord with his intuitive graces.

Over a hundred years ago, a wealthy Greek family lived across the street from the Church of Hagios Panteleimon. They proudly built the interior of their home with world-renowned Marseille red bricks shipped in directly from France, an architectural signature for many historic Greek buildings in Istanbul from the Patriarchate quarters of the Golden Horn to the mansions of the Prince Islands and up the Bosporus shorefront.

Nowadays, the century house is inhabited by the gregarious and hospitable Volkan Özgürcan, a former clothier whose wife Aynur first curated paintings as part of her creative architecture business. Her work inspired him with the idea for a gallery, and his daughter Sena was there to fashion the name, Mona, while his son Doğan assists in certain logistical matters with his education in industrial engineering. It's a family operation, and the ambiance exudes it, full of life and all the playful cheer that is the joy of art appreciation.

Behind the scenes, the artists dig and scour from the depths of the subconscious, from the unseen and unfelt, the mystic unknown and perilous abyss of the world soul for an individual voice in the form of a touch, matter against space, light and form, color and shade, art and essence. Such hapless visionaries as the peerlessly quixotic nonconformist Fatih Urunç have given Mona Art something to say for itself.

After his untimely passing in 2012 at the age of 46, the nearby Syrian-run gallery Kelimat collaborated with Mona on a collective exhibition of Urunç paintings. One of them still hangs from the wall above the desk where Özgürcan now sits to remember him and tell his story to everyone who walks in with the simple curiosity enough to look. It is a volatile oil on canvas of a circular face with rolling white eyes in ruddy browns and blood reds against a vague purplish black background reading: "Weightless on Mars."

"I couldn't meet him but I have known him," wrote Özgürcan as a dedication to Urunç in the exhibition publication, where he is praised by friends, colleagues and collectors. "He shouted his life. Fatih, your mother is not the only one who appreciates you. You are precious, famous, well-loved, a great master. Your art fascinates."

One of the most striking pieces on display at Mona Art is an authentically signed Salvador Dali print of his etching for "Apparition of My Cousin Carolinetta on the Beach At Rosas," which Özgürcan is quick to point out with blissful pride. Its presence catapults any presumption of Mona Art as a locals-only neighborhood joint into an establishment of world-class taste, something that is especially precious and esteemed in Istanbul, particularly in the arts scene.

His curation is heavily influenced by the international movement known as Naive art, advocating for the work of artists whose sources of inspiration and technical methods are void of formal training, independent of the arts education establishment. In that way, he exhibits modernist greats like Robert College dropout Abidin Dino, who led Group D and the Group of New Artists in early to mid-20th century Turkey.

Dino held shows across the globe, organizing the 1939 Turkish section of the New York Exposition. In Paris, he befriended Picasso and Gertrude Stein, falling in love with the city enough to make it his home until death. His "Hands" sculpture in Maçka Democracy Park has immortalized his name in his birthplace of Istanbul.

Along the wall beside a couple nebulous black-and-white drawings of Dino are the works of a fitting companion, Adnan Turani, who passed away last year, leaving behind a numerously awarded reputation befitting a national icon. His cubist impressionism is startlingly emotive in its originality, and Özgürcan has some of his most captivating work on display.

Under the doorway mantle where passersby often stop by blinking with fascination at the surprisingly personable and uplifting curation at Mona Art, the meticulously expert paintings of Bayram Gümüş hang delicately awaiting the right collector. Gümüş is a living contemporary and chief proponent of the Naive movement among Turkish artists. His landscapes, like "Peysage" and "Shipyard," employ masterful pointillist technique and architecturally geometric precision.

Yusuf Katipoğlu and Mine Göker are Kuzguncuk locals. Since 1980, Katipoğlu has lived in Kuzguncuk out of his workshop, where he's mixed his phosphorescent colors to illuminate his visionary, daydream forms as a neighborhood lion with six exhibitions at Kuzguncuk's own Harmony Art Gallery while showing in Switzerland, Germany, Macedonia, and Istanbul's International Art Fairs four consecutive years in a row.

And then there are the flavorful candy-striped palettes of Mine Göker, whose cartoonish cityscapes are irresistibly fun as she details the quotidian charm of Istanbul one precious moment at a time. She also contributes to the artful neighborhood air of Kuzguncuk, with an exhibition at Nail Kitabevi this past May.

The word for curation comes from the same Latin root as to cure. The curator has a remedy for the artist, and for the public. For the artist, it is space, and an outlet of appreciation. For the public, it is that window to a meaningful experience of the inner life of humanity. In many ways, the curator is as imaginative as an artist, being the medium between obscurity and fame.

When Fatih Urunç passed away, a star fell beneath the horizon and all who remembered his brilliance knew that his art would never fade away as long as they lived another year. As the constellations form with the blazing mystery of the universe, new stars become apparent, while first very faintly, rising only within sight of those few who are truly looking.

It was one fateful day when Özgürcan received word from a collector that the light of a new star could be seen on the horizon of the contemporary arts world. The collector called from Bursa with the news that he found just what Özgürcan was looking for in a new feature artist.

His name is Taner Yılmaz, and he is a young force to be reckoned with among emerging painters on the international contemporary scene. Most recently, the Brick Lane Gallery in London acquired his work for its "Contemporary Painting" exhibition in January.

Yılmaz is a young master of portraiture. His subjects are mostly women. Özgürcan testifies that the faces are drawn solely from his imagination. His art demonstrates a surgical knife-edge skill, as he is known to form facial lines more quickly than a craftsman well beyond his years. And yet, the sheer originality of his abstract expressionism is exasperatingly refreshing, considering the fact that he is an artist of the unschooled Naive movement.

Last week, Özgürcan acquired four more of his paintings, and is preparing an exhibit of his work at Mona Art Gallery in November. The paintings of Yılmaz surge loudly with uninhibited emotional texture, as they become more numerous and travel from horizon to horizon, signed in charcoal and stardust.