Oğuz Kaleli is an artist still in his 20s born and trained in Konya. His works are phenomenal, both in scale and ordered consistency. He paints huge canvases of mind-blowing, tightly woven multi-layered complexity, inspired by bamboo and other natural elements, sometimes spaghetti-like sometimes more akin to ant heaps.
The paintings have a disturbing Dali-meets-Alice in Wonderland quality about them, especially when diminutive human figures appear. Combining almost surgical realism and detail with abstract forms, and creating sometimes dystopian impressions, his works nevertheless hark back nostalgically to a time when buildings were constructed of wood and iron.
All painted within the last year, this is an uncomfortable take on the modern world with the occasional nod to romantic realism. As the title of this powerful show suggests, these works are screams of protest at the mangling of our world by developers and megolomaniacs. ‘I’m searching for an exit in order to leave the chaos,’ Kaleli writes as his concluding note.
Oğuz Kaleli, Exit #06, mixed techniques on canvas 125 x 170cm, 2021
Oğuz Kaleli, Exit #08, mixed techniques on canvas, 125 x 170cm, 2021
Oğuz Kaleli, Exit #09, mixed technique on canvas 100 x 70cm, 2020
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
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