EKREM YALCINDAG: NATURES

Ekrem Yalcindag, born in Turkey in 1964, lives and works in Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Istanbul. His artworks are represented internationally in renowned collections of modern art such as in Istanbul Modern, Sammlung Goetz, Munich, in the EPO Art Collection, Munich/ Den Haag, the Arthena Foundation, Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich or in the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden. After his first art studies in Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir (1990-1993), he continued his artistic career at the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, in the years 1994 to 1999, with Hermann Nitsch (his mentor) and Thomas Bayrle. Here, Ekrem Yalcindag starts drawing using the impasto color application followed, in 1994/95, by the development of the first blossom motifs. His art studies in the Frankfurter Palmen- garten soon allowed him to find the characteristic abstract blossom forms for his paintings. And in the same year, he then discovered the Da Vinci brush 1570 size 0 with which he now creates all his artworks. In 1997, the painter created his first Tondos as well the first Camouflage works. Three years later, Ekrem Yalcindag extensively started dealing with ornaments and geometric elements. During his atelier scholarship in the Künstlerhaus Schloss Dalmoral, Bad Ems, he transfers the pattern of paving tiles onto canvas. Here, the first work of the Schloss Balmoral set is created. Eventually, in 2006/7, he refocuses on Tondos. He names the resulting works “Impressions from the Street”, hereby adhering to the French impressionists. One year later, in winter, for the first time, he subsequently designs a mural at a Berliner kindergarten in the Griechischen Allee. He paints further murals for the Kai Middendorff Galerie in Frankfurt (2009), Museum Morsbroich in Leverkusen (2009), Istanbul Modern (2010), the Kunst- and Kulturstiftung Opelvillen Rüsselsheim (2016) or Borusan Contemporary (2010 / 2021). In 2014, engagements with Alexander Rodtschenko and Barnett Newman brought the triptych “Red Yellow Blue” to life. In the new chemistry building of the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen he creates his up to date biggest mural: the eight walls of the staircases covered in red, yellow and blue color areas. In 2015, Yalcindag paints additional monochromatic works. had been using to frame his flower motifs, and – inspired by Henri Matisse’s silhouettes – he starts venturing with colorful variations of his line framework. In Red Yellow Blue (2016), he then breaks the strict, geometric separation of color surfaces and intertwines these three primary colors on one canvas. For the artwork set Colored Blacks (2017), Yalcindag returns to the round-shaped format. However, he reduces the color palette to hues of black. And only upon closer inspection, the viewer can perceive the diversity of color hues rendered in the concentrically arranged circles. Continuing to explore the possibilities of monochrome, in the following year, he created works in the colors red and green (e.g. Red Red Red, 2018). Starting in 2018, he produces the works ti- tled Infinity, which appear for the first time in the Kai Middendorff Galerie. With the help of subtle nuances in the horizontal lane, he creates color gradients capable of opening imaginary spaces and convey the impression of infinity. In 2020, Ekrem Yalcindag applies the principle of his color gradient technique, developed for the Infinity-Series, on his round-shaped formats. The perception of spatial depth was achieved by the radial arrangement of the chromatic gradients. In 2022, he transfers his principle of acrylic murals onto panels for the very first time. The less corporeal color material here- by allows a largescale execution of the vegetal ornament. And with that, Sunrise (2022) is created, a Tondo with a diameter of 3.3 meters and a red-orange color-gradient. In his youngest artworks, Ekrem Yalcindag implements his former work representing forms of nature, while dramatically expanding his technical repertoire: in gigantic formats he combines his typical delicate oil painting technique with wood and screen printing. These wall-filling artworks can be seen publicly for the first time in the Kunstforum Wien.

Curator of the exhibition: Jelena Tamindžija Donnart