Yeliz Sık CIFTCI | 51st Minute | DG Gallery & Project

Artist and clinical psychologist Yeliz Şık Çifçi presents her first solo exhibition titled “51st Minute,” curated by Dr. Zeynep Öztürk. In this exhibition, the artist transforms the therapist’s unconscious into visual imagery, examining the stages of love and forms of relating to the other from a therapist’s perspective.

Addressing “the stages of love and the relationships established with the other” through the lens of a therapist, the exhibition consists of an imaginary narrative shaped by the traces left in the therapist’s inner world — and the unspoken — after years of listening to love stories as a clinical psychologist.

At the end of a 50-minute psychotherapy session, the client leaves the room; however, the client’s story continues within the therapist’s mind, body, and unconscious. In “51st Minute,” the artist translates this threshold moment — when the therapist confronts themselves after the session — into an associative visual language inspired by the phases of love: beginning, separation, and healing.

The exhibition invites viewers to understand their own “51st minute.” The imagery consists of symbols that have not yet been verbalized within the therapy room, emerging from the intersection of the client’s and therapist’s unconscious. These symbols belong neither to the client nor the therapist; rather, they represent a third space — a field formed by the encounter of two unconscious minds. The exhibition encourages viewers to recognize their own “51st minute” and to hear their inner voice.

“Both familiar and unsettling…” The works in this exhibition make it possible to perceive sudden leaps of the unconscious and the pathological dynamics of love within an intuitive rhythm. Layered surfaces, torn fragments, words, faded or striking images concretize the intense, chaotic emotional states experienced by the therapist after sessions.

The imagery, extending from the beginning of love to the experiences following separation, unfolds within a spatially constructed therapy room and seemingly concludes within the therapist’s imagination. Curated by Dr. Zeynep Öztürk, “51st Minute” can be visited at DG Art Project until January 11, 2026.

ABOUT YELIZ ŞIK ÇİFÇİ

Born in Istanbul in 1977, Yeliz Şık Çifçi graduated from Boğaziçi University with a double major in Psychology and Guidance and Psychological Counseling. She received her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from the same university in 2003, completing her thesis on associative memory. Between 2006 and 2008, she completed the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies Distance Education Program at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.

She continues her clinical work with adolescents and adults and has been teaching part-time in the Department of Guidance and Psychological Counseling at Boğaziçi University since 2010. Her artistic practice began with sculpture studio courses during her university years and has evolved through the use of multiple techniques. Alongside sculpture, she combines collage, acrylic portraiture, assemblage, video art, and photography to create a hybrid narrative language. Çifçi maintains ethical responsibility regarding client confidentiality as a fundamental principle of her production process, visualizing the invisible mechanics of the therapy room and the therapist’s inner world.

Curator: Dr. Zeynep Öztürk