BREACH Gallery in Miami presents Disaster of Epic Proportions, a solo exhibition for contemporary Turkish artist Erkut Terliksiz. This will be his first solo show in the United States and will feature a collection of paintings that convey mysterious narratives that push beyond the limits of one’s imagination and invite the viewer into a world of enchanting characters.
Terliksiz’s paintings present figures whose purposes seem both distinct and dream-like - people and creatures that inhabit surreal worlds as if captured in a snapshot from a fairytale. Each subject pulses with life, as the artist utilizes a Cubist approach to representation. A parallel of Picasso’s deconstructive abstraction, Terliksiz draws with emotion as he seeks stranger and more peculiar realities. Visually, his paintings exhibit tremendous depth, as his figures’ disproportionate bodies and bulging features create a sense of movement within the composition. the characters seem to animate as they stride down dusty paths or sit quietly in thought.
For the artist, each painting becomes a transformative process, one that instigates a fundamental change within himself and his work. sharing his perspective of the world means pushing beyond the norm and cataloging the extremes of human experience. He portrays things not as they are but as he remembers them, seeking to distort and stretch what exists into the bizarre.
The most valuable step in his process is improvisation and embracing the often unpredictable nature of creation. While pushing the limits of his material, the artist enjoys the often unintentional and accidental elements of painting that when left undisturbed create further depth to the painting’s narrative. “Tiny accidents turn into big decisions,” he says, a philosophy that is intrinsic to intuitive image making. Curiosity and the acceptance of disaster permeate Terliksiz’s work, allowing a glimpse into his evocative and imaginative world.
