The new season of art events in the city has just begun, and one of the exhibitions I am most excited about is "Roots and Wings" by Doğukan Çiğdem at Gallery/Miz. Opening on Sept. 9, 2025, this marks the artist’s second solo show, accompanied by a curatorial text from Feride Çelik. At the heart of the exhibition lies the tension between memory and possibility – between the “roots” of the past and the “wings” that gesture toward the future.
Drawing from his characteristic comic book aesthetic, Çiğdem creates figures that move between archaeological heritage and the contemporary world. In earlier works, his visual language bridged Göbeklitepe’s stone pillars with the present; here, that bridge cuts through the layered sediments of civilization, opening onto an uncertain future. Motifs drawn from plants play a central role. At times, they sprout from the wings of his hybrid figures; at others, they appear as fragments of cultural memory, such as when the pattern of an old carpet is cut into the shape of wings, transforming inherited texture into imagined flight. These details echo Kierkegaard’s observation that “life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward.” The exhibition also presents a figure with wings, simultaneously alluring and unsettling, representing the ambiguous influence of contemporary civilization on humanity.
In Çiğdem’s paintings, dense linework, stark contrasts and layered backdrops invite viewers into both a historical and emotional excavation. Roots and Wings ultimately asks whether we can have wings without roots, suggesting a journey between collective memory and visions of the future. The show runs until Oct. 4, 2025, at Gallery/Miz.
Back in the city, I find myself immediately drawn into the rhythm of its art tours, eager to trace the conversations unfolding across galleries. One of the city's exhibitions that excites me most this season is Cem Gönül’s solo show, "Love is All Around," hosted by Sevil Dolmacı Istanbul at the historic Villa İpranosyan. On view from Aug. 14 to Sept. 10, the exhibition unfolds as a poetic reflection on love – not simply as a feeling but as a way of being.
Gönül’s canvases move between intuition and reason, using color, figure and geometry to weave an inner map of emotions. Each painting feels like a different facet of love, revealed through subtle tones and layered forms. His use of color is not only an aesthetic choice but also a means of giving shape to feelings – sometimes spontaneous, sometimes carefully balanced. The figures in his works are more than visual motifs; they are thinking, sensing presences that carry their own stories. They shift between the personal and the universal, inviting viewers into an intimate yet shared emotional space. Encountering them is almost meditative, with each canvas offering the possibility of a new meaning, a new dialogue.
Geometric forms bring another dimension, suggesting that love is not only emotional but also structural. Through his unique techniques, Gönül creates a quiet rhythm, a balance that gives the exhibition its harmony. There is both intensity and restraint in this visual world, like music composed in silence. With "Love is All Around," Cem Gönül invites us to follow the traces of love somewhere between reality and imagination. It is an exhibition that speaks not only to the eye but to the heart and the mind – an invitation to experience love as a presence that truly surrounds us.
