CONCERT FOR SMOKERS

A woman at a piano plays for creatures that seem neither fully present nor entirely of this world. Figures lean into one another, a face opens across a back, bodies emerge from darkness, and abandoned interiors drift through the exhibition. Şirin Şimşek’s paintings begin with encounters, observations, or small moments from everyday life. Yet what appears on the canvas has already moved away from the original experience. The ordinary shifts, darkens, and transforms into something else. Another woman rests her head against a hand, held, blessed, or asleep. Her eyes are closed, while a face appears on her back as though it is quietly emerging. Milk flows from breasts on a tiled floor where a cat sits. Rooms contain other rooms, creatures move through a night garden, and different moments merge into one another. The works pause at the point where something begins to become recognizable, but never fully reveals itself. Rachel Levian’s sculptures seem to follow their own internal logic. Built from everyday materials such as wood, resin, wire, and tubes, they develop a language of their own. Spirals stand on legs, blue tubes arch across the floor, and resin figures rest among piles of shavings. The materials appear solid and fragile at the same time. The objects suggest furniture, tools, creatures, or architectural fragments without fully becoming any of them. Some works appear unfinished, while others resemble remnants of structures whose original purpose has disappeared. Levian’s sculptures begin with materials and objects, but gradually take on a presence that goes beyond their physical form. Placed inside a former petrol station, a space that itself seems disconnected from its original function, the paintings and sculptures enter into a conversation about transformation, uncertainty, and the unstable relationship between what is familiar and what is strange. This exhibition marks the first presentation of works by Şimşek and Levian together.