Zeytinburnu Culture and Art continues to bring together valuable exhibitions with art lovers. The opening of Painter Turgay Sarı “Vaveyla” will be held as the last exhibition of 2024 on Friday, December 20 at 19:00.
Turgay Sarı’s new exhibition “Vaveyla”, where he touches upon the spirit of nature and soil, meets with art lovers. Curated by Mehmet Lütfi Şen, the exhibition consists of paintings that are a new proposal for modern people. The works, which ponder the meaning of returning to the smell of soil and the texture of nature, are inspired by nature. The paintings, which complete a whole together and increase their artistic power with both their aesthetic values and the message they contain, will be exhibited at Zeytinburnu Culture and Art. The exhibition, which will open at 19:00 on Friday, December 20, will be open to visitors every day until January 31, 2025.
Vaveyla: The Scream of the Soil
We use the term nature for the earth we live on, with all the living and non-living beings in it. This gigantic mechanism is the fundamental source of humanity’s cultural accumulation. History feeds on the awareness that nature offers to societies within the framework of their beliefs. Humanity constructs the universe of culture, science and art by observing this ready-made natural structure and harvesting the norms that will benefit it. Societies progress by first being influenced by nature and then by each other. However, unfortunately, today we live in an age where these historical arguments have almost completely lost their validity. The technological progress that began in the 17th century was also the beginning of human regression. We moved from the understanding of nature that we were a part of to the understanding of nature that we were the masters of, by being carried away by the technological power we acquired. If we cannot stop this process, we will continue to prepare our own end, together with many living species.
Turgay Sarı’s “Vaveyla” painting exhibition aims to put a stop to this trend and draw attention to the fact that the path humanity is walking on at the cost of destroying its own future is not sustainable. Sarı takes the smell of the soil house where he spent his childhood and carries it with his works to the place that Aşık Veysel pointed out by saying, “My loyal lover is the black soil.” If we can step outside the template of “what beautiful landscapes” while looking at these paintings, we will be able to confront the side of staying away from soil and nature that distances us from ourselves and paralyzes us. We are destroying the nature we see in these paintings a little more each passing day. However, in order to continue living as a species, we need to stop dominating and disrupting nature and return to being a part of nature.
The project, which takes its name from Namık Kemal’s poem “Vaveyla”, in which he defends the concept of homeland with great enthusiasm and turns it into a scream, consists of the works of our artist in his last years. I would like to thank the painter Turgay Sarı, my dear artist friends Kadir Ablak and İlhan Aydan, Zeytinburnu Mayor Ömer Arısoy who made the project come to life, and all my friends who contributed.
Curator Mehmet Lütfi Şen
“Vaveyla” Exhibition Opening: Friday, December 20, 2024 Time: 19.00
Place: Zeytinburnu Culture and Arts, Semiha Şakir Cd. No:15, 34020 Zeytinburnu/İstanbul
Visit dates: December 20, 2024 - January 31, 2025, can be seen every day of the week from 10.00 in the morning to midnight.
Who is Turgay Sarı?
Turgay Sarı was born in Erzurum Narman Şekerli in 1972. He grew up in the same house he was born in until he was 12, surrounded by unspoiled nature. He lived his childhood by touching the colors, textures and plants on the soil; feeling every aspect of nature and inhaling its scent. He spent all his time shaping mud, stone, soil and plants, inventing toys and making sculptures without realizing it. He came to Erzurum for his secondary education. During this period, he worked in economics and accounting after school. As a result of this successful work period, he preferred Atatürk University Faculty of Business Administration with the encouragement of his environment. In the 3rd year of university, he was sure that this field did not satisfy him and he dropped out of the faculty. He won the exam of the Painting Department of the Faculty of Education of the university and graduated from this department in 1998. He was successful in the Ministry of National Education teacher exam in the same year and started teaching art. He still continues to provide art education at Yalova Atatürk Science and Art Center. Turgay Sarı never abandoned his passion for painting, which started in his childhood. He devoted all his works to drawing attention to the rapid deterioration of nature and soil by the hands of modern savage humans. The artist has participated in more than 200 mixed exhibitions in Turkey and abroad to date. He regularly exhibited his works in many art fairs held in Turkey such as IAAF, ARTCONTAC, Bodrum Art Fair, İzmir Art Fair, ARTANKARA. The artist, whose paintings are included in collections in our country and abroad, has opened 10 personal exhibitions. Turgay Sarı still continues his paintings in his studio in Yalova.