BETWEEN DREAM AND REALITY

Millî Reasürans Art Gallery presents a comprehensive exhibition marking a significant moment in Habip Aydoğdu’s artistic career. Bringing together works from across many years of production, the exhibition unfolds within a field of expression that oscillates between dream and reality.

Aydoğdu’s paintings stand out for the tension they establish between personal experience and social reality. The artist engages both with his inner world and his surrounding environment, constructing his imagery through memories, associations, and observations. In this sense, his works make visible not only what is seen, but also the traces left behind by lived experience.

Over time, this visual language becomes increasingly dense and layered, intertwining dreamlike imagery with fragments of everyday life. Figures and objects appear within an atmosphere that feels at once familiar and estranged, positioning the viewer between a sense of proximity and distance.

Recurring bird figures, a prominent element in the artist’s work, also feature in this exhibition. These figures function not merely as elements of nature, but as multilayered signs associated with notions of freedom, confinement, and uncertainty. The use of color, meanwhile, emerges as a key component shaping the emotional and conceptual intensity of the paintings.

As Aydoğdu’s practice evolves over time, it reveals an ongoing process of self-reflection and confrontation within his work. Bringing together different periods of his production, this exhibition offers insight into the core themes and visual universe that define the artist’s oeuvre.