Merve İşeri Merging Infinite

MERVE İŞERİ

‘MERGING INFINITE’

09.11 - 16.12.2023

CURATOR | CANAN BATUR

Merve İşeri’s first solo exhibition at Galerist, titled ‘Merging Infinite’ between November 9 and December 16, 2023, curated by Canan Batur. The title of the exhibition etymologically signals coming together, melding into one another, and the ways in which it can create allyships. The exhibition explores the ambiguity of the separation between nature and human, as well as grounding, rooting, and the sense of belonging. She reminds us that we will return to the cosmic dust which we came from; invites us to mend the damaged ties and celebrate collective living.

The ties which are felt divinely and subtly, appear at once as the mother tongue and the co-authors of İşeri’s canvases. This synesthetic approach also finds its place in the exhibition as sound and video installations that emerge from the intuitive associations based on constellation maps.

The sound installation titled ‘Sound of the Constellations’, produced by Merve İşeri in collaboration with composer Heloise Tunstall-Behrens, presents a combined experience with the exhibition via creating a multi-sensory perception. The percussive timbres of the vocal notations intuitively interpret the star constellations while opening up space for a sense of direction. The video work titled 'Orbits' takes on the merging with water, the possibility of a perception beyond the human one; it questions the reflections of our movement and our existence as social beings through different perspectives.

Studying the cosmic ties from the sea to the earth, and then to the skies, İşeri presents a sincere and internal experience through the intuitive constellations derived from the star maps, and earthen balls scattered through the exhibition space.

‘Merging Infinite’, where alchemic combination symbolically and physically gives way to organic shapes, unusual fictional languages, and overlapping surreal forms and colours, İşeri invites the spectators to feel and internalise the acoustic, intuitive, and tactile perceptions with references from the skies and the earth.

ABOUT MERVE İŞERİ

Merve İşeri’s (b. 1992, Istanbul) work is centred on the context of communication and inner landscapes that explore the modes of language through the communication between nature, human and culture. In her painting practice sound and movement are at interplay to propose new languages for the viewer, an invitation to step into inner landscapes in the hope of merging personal and communal. There is specific intent to each mark, symbol, and pattern on the canvas, yet together in concert, they seem to dance and talk their own language. Meaning is simultaneously subverted and created as the lines and shapes converge and disperse in a symphony of sound and sight.

Merve İşeri received her B.A. in Design of Communication from Politecnico di Milano in 2014. Her recent group exhibitions include; ‘Between Earthly Beings and the Unknown Cosmic World: The Continent’ at Julius Koller Society Bratislava, ‘Time is a Child’ in Leros organised by Galerist in collaboration with Perasma, ‘Search Party’ at Tatjana Pieters Gallery in Gent and ‘Conversations with Memory’ at Cedric Bardawil Gallery in London. Her recent solo exhibition ‘Passage’ took place at Lamb Gallery, London in 2023, and her previous exhibition ‘Hear to See’ was curated by Canan Batur at Pablo's Birthday Gallery in New York. Her work has been published in Frieze Magazine, Financial Times, Vice, Huffington Post, Harper's Bazaar Turkey among others. İşeri currently lives and works in London, UK.