Beyond the Familiar

In this exhibition, we move through a world we recognize. Animals, female figures, flowers, toys, masks, balloons, wings, threads and everyday objects… All of them feel familiar to us. Yet, as we look at the paintings a little longer, this familiarity begins to unravel. Figures shift places, bodies transform, animals come closer to humans, while humans take on an animalistic or fairy-tale-like identity. The boundary between reality and dream gradually dissolves.

Beyond the Familiar describes precisely the world that emerges at this threshold: a world that begins just beyond what we know, where familiar images transform into another identity. In Gülin Hayat Topdemir’s paintings, figures are never merely themselves. A woman can simultaneously be a fairy-tale heroine, a mythological creature, a toy figure, or a contemporary icon. Within the bodies of animals, instinct, memory, fear, play, and the unconscious circulate. The boundary between human and animal becomes a space capable of transformation.

In this world, myths are not stories left behind in the past. The hybrid creatures, gods and fantastical beings of antiquity can reappear today within the imagery of popular culture, toys and everyday objects. A balloon, a pair of headphones, a ribbon, a sock, or a chair can become part of the same story as mythological figures. The artist creates a personal mythology from these encounters.

Here, the concept of peinture also becomes significant. Because all these images come to the surface not merely to be narrated but to be reimagined through painting itself. Figures, animals, fabric, skin, flowers, metal and paint are reconstructed within the materiality of the painted surface. On one side stands myth, on the other, pop; between the two stands painting itself. From this encounter emerges a strange yet tranquil atmosphere. While the paintings initially convey a sense of beauty, elegance and playfulness, a subtle sense of uncanniness emerges upon closer inspection. Because here, nothing is quite what it appears to be. An animal is not merely an animal. A woman is not merely a woman. A toy is not merely a toy. Behind every image lies another image and within every story, another story.

Beyond the Familiar is an invitation to step beyond the safe boundaries of the familiar and look toward a place where images have not yet been named.

The exhibition can be visited at x-ist’s Gümüşsuyu space between 10 September – 10 October 2026.