The exhibition, named after the phrase “Halet-i Ruhiye,” meaning the “state of the soul” features Şengöz’s drawings on paper, painted with materials such as watercolor, ink, and ecoline that harmonize with the fluid and variable states of the soul.
The figures painted by the artist with bright, high-contrast colors wander in the uncanny and ambiguous waters of bilateral relations.
In the drawings, once can sense a tension as if something is going to happen at any moment, someone who has been silent for a long time will suddenly speak or run away, a peace as if they have forgotten the world by closing themselves into each other. In the silence of loneliness for two on hot noons, heavy emotions hanging in the void are felt.
Sometimes we see compositions accompanied by unfamiliar depictions of familiar figures such as fish, bulls and birds.
In the stories of the drawings, we bear witness about what we see, and we tell about what we cannot see. What Şengöz narrates becomes our stories.

12.10.2023
Canan Cürgen
Museumologist, Curator