MERGING INFINITE: Merve İşeri

Merve İşeri’s first solo exhibition at Galerist, titled ‘Merging Infinite’ is open between November 9 and December 16, 2023, curated by Canan Batur. The title of the exhibition etymologically signals coming together, melding into one another, and the ways in which it can create allyships. The exhibition explores the ambiguity of the separation between nature and human, as well as grounding, rooting, and the sense of belonging. She reminds us that we will return to the cosmic dust which we came from; invites us to mend the damaged ties and celebrate collective living.

The ties which are felt divinely and subtly, appear at once as the mother tongue and the co-authors of İşeri’s canvases. This synesthetic approach also finds its place in the exhibition as sound and video installations that emerge from the intuitive associations based on constellation maps.

The sound installation titled ‘Sound of the Constellations’, produced by Merve İşeri in collaboration with composer Heloise Tunstall-Behrens, presents a combined experience with the exhibition via creating a multi-sensory perception. The percussive timbres of the vocal notations intuitively interpret the star constellations while opening up space for a sense of direction. The video work titled 'Orbits' takes on the merging with water, the possibility of a perception beyond the human one; it questions the reflections of our movement and our existence as social beings through different perspectives.

Studying the cosmic ties from the sea to the earth, and then to the skies, İşeri presents a sincere and internal experience through the intuitive constellations derived from the star maps, and earthen balls scattered through the exhibition space.

‘Merging Infinite’, where alchemic combination symbolically and physically gives way to organic shapes, unusual fictional languages, and overlapping surreal forms and colours, İşeri invites the spectators to feel and internalise the acoustic, intuitive, and tactile perceptions with references from the skies and the earth.