In an exhibition entitled Eyewitness, artists Timur Celik and Erdogan Zümrütoglu are presenting works
characterized by great sensitivity to the current political events in war zones, executed using painterly
means in a moving combination of commitment to European tradition and astute contemporaneity.

Eyewitness is the title of a series of small-format paintings on paper and canvas by Timur Celik, which question the genre of landscape painting. He investigates the possibility of reporting on devastating truths using quiet tones in face of the terrible.

Erdoğan Zümrütoğlu responds to his colleague with counter arguments signalizing a willingness to take artistic risks. Here, it strikes us immediately that the artist brutally batters painting itself, employing forceful sweeps of the brush to declare it a problem zone. Starting out from the Gezi Park protests in Turkey (2013), Zümrütoğlu has produced a cycle of images focusing on characters embedded in an expressive maelstrom of colour, which may be interpreted both narratively and conceptionally. Torn here and there between trauma and liberation, the artist asserts his creative freedom as a counter force to the restrictions imposed on him by the chaos of existence.

Timur Celik *1960 in Gümüshane, Turkey, lives and works in Berlin.

Erdogan Zümrütoglu *1970 in Konya, Turkey, lives and works in Istanbul and Berlin.