Art On İstanbul welcomes visitors to Art On İstanbul Piyalepaşa between March 22 and April 19 with Umut Erbaş's first solo exhibition, "Just When You Thought the Story Was Over"
"This is a story that is never complete. Every gaze reveals a new possibility; every path redraws the map of meaning. If meaning takes shape in the search for it, then this town is not a place where what is missing is completed but where everything is constantly reconstructed. And every visitor is faced with the possibility of turning what they see into a story." -Melis Bektaş
In his exhibition, "Just When You Thought the Story Was Over" Umut Erbaş traces the creative process that began with his encounters with amorphous and aesthetically intriguing "burnt plastic fragments" in nature. While hiking, Erbaş captures analog photographs and collects organic and inorganic materials, weaving these elements into a multi-layered narrative.
Through installations and visual compositions, the artist reinterprets the objects he encounters, collects, and photographs, placing them within a new whole. The exhibition invites the audience into this process by presenting Random Texts at the entrance— a collection of film synopses Erbaş has gathered and short stories he has written. In this way, each visitor experiences the exhibition through the lens of a unique narrative. Set within an atmosphere dominated by wood, bone, and shades of green and blue, the exhibition brings together the artist’s debut analog photographs, drawings, AI-generated images layered through multiple exposures, a contemporary cabinet of curiosities experiment, installations, unusual objects, and an analog video project.
"Just When You Thought the Story Was Over" highlights how materials can be transformed and stories can be rewritten with infinite possibilities. Encouraging the audience to create their own narratives, the exhibition invites them into a multi-layered world open to exploration.
