Galeri Nev opens the new season with Ramize Erer, whose works are featured in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Oscar nominated movie “About Dry Grasses” (2023) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The artist will visit Ankara simultaneously with the movie’s premiere in Turkey.
Named after a verse by Emily Dickinson, Erer’s exhibition "And I am a Rose" is a retrospective bringing together for the first time nearly a hundred portraits created by the artist at different times. Reminiscent of the masterpieces of twentieth-century European painters found in museums around the world, the portraits stand out most for the eyes or the gaze. In particular, women and girls, who completely contradict the characters depicted in the artist's caricatures, with all their fragility, await not only the viewer's gaze but also their compassion. Ramize Erer explores the concept of compassion using almost all textures and materials between thick oil strokes and the thinnest pencil lines, yet her own face is strikingly absent. "And I am a Rose" refrains from adding “I/me” to the list of those who try to comprehend the world through splendor and humility, pleasure and innocence in the midst of extremely visceral, profound and complex emotions.
Ramize Erer graduated from the Adnan Çoker workshop at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts Faculty, Department of Painting. Starting from the age of sixteen, she illustrated for humor magazines like Gırgır, Leman and newspapers such as Cumhuriyet and Radikal, leading her to be the co-founder of Bayan Yanı magazine. After thirteen years of living in Paris, she returned to the medium of painting while her cartoons were being exhibited at the Museum of Cartoons in Krems, Austria; the Cean Memorial Museum in France included one of her drawings in its collection, and she was awarded the Fluide Glacial prize for “creative courage” at the Angouleme International Comics Festival. With Beral Madra's encouragement, Erer exhibited her paintings for the first time in 2013, followed by her first solo exhibition in Istanbul in 2016. In 2019, her works were featured in the "Golden Age" exhibition organized on the occasion of Galeri Nev's thirty-fifth anniversary and in the "Touched and Thrilled" etching exhibition held in 2020. The artist continues to work between Paris and Istanbul.
Running until October 11, the exhibition also includes a work by Gökhun Baltacı among the portraits of Ramize Erer. In the cinematic language, the term "kame" is used for great actors who appear as guests in other movies, often in minor, quiet roles. Galeri Nev welcomes a "kame" in every exhibition throughout 2023-2024 in order to explore the overlaps between different generations, as well as to reflect the questions and techniques within the exhibition program.
