ERDOĞAN ZÜMRÜTOĞLU – ALL AND NONE

Erdoğan Zümrütoğlu’s solo exhibition “All and None” takes place at DG Art Gallery & Projects between November 30, 2023 – January 3, 2024. Developed through an elegant emphasis on duality, the exhibition stands as one of the interim stops in the artist’s artistic journey.

In the exhibition, which traces a dual opposition in its title, the artist continues to explore opposing human emotions in painting and sculpture through his much-favored figurative abstraction techniques. While conveying his world—deepening on the canvas surface and forming layers of meaning—he creates fluid and cyclical gestures that are not pre-designed, shaped instead by natural and spontaneously developing instinctual compositions. Beyond being monumental in their epic scale and constructed forms, these paintings also form the basis of the fluid theatricality characteristic of the artist’s works.

As suggested by the title of the exhibition, Zümrütoğlu stands out not only with an ongoing artistic defiance extending from past to present but also with the promise of offering the viewer something “new.” In his paintings, he expands and develops the space of the accidental relationship he establishes with paint. As this distinctive technique carries over into sculpture, he creates a new grammar evolving from two dimensions into three. As known from his previous exhibitions, the artist skillfully progresses each time by disrupting a given visual language in order to construct a new grammar.

As David Bellingham aptly states: “This progression—from childlike and emotional reactions to a sensuality associated with visuality and ultimately arriving at reason—is the only way to explore Zümrütoğlu’s world.” Indeed, in his conversation with Bellingham, the painter strikingly described his journey with the viewer: he wants to affect the onlooker “first from the soft underbelly, then from the heart, and then from the brain.” Addressing the skeptical nature of human existence that has persisted throughout history in various ways, Zümrütoğlu also reveals the richness of his inner world by navigating a wide spectrum ranging from diverse philosophical approaches to art historical references, and from literature to poetry and music.

About Erdoğan Zümrütoğlu

Erdoğan Zümrütoğlu (Konya, 1970), after completing his education at Dokuz Eylül University, lived and conducted research in various parts of the world to pursue his artistic practice. After returning to Turkey, he continued his work in his studio and has participated in numerous solo as well as group exhibitions. Selected solo exhibitions include “Salt Time,” PİLEVNELİ Mecidiyeköy (Istanbul, 2019); “Eyewitness,” Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin, 2018); “Sacred Bargain,” PİLEVNELİ (Istanbul, 2018); “Mirror of Darkness,” JD Malat Gallery (London, 2018); and “Für Alle und Keinen,” Tammen & Partner Galerie (Berlin, 2016). Pursuing existential anxieties through an abstract expressionist language, the artist’s works are included in major galleries and collections around the world. He lives and works in Istanbul.