Zeynep Beler is an Istanbul-based painter fascinated by images arrested on the threshold of coherence. In her work, latency and poor resolution are transformed into projections, dreams, semi-familiar visions. Texture and form take precedence over indexicality and rationality, invoking an almost precognitive awareness. Inspired by oil pastels' origin as a medium developed in postwar Japan for schoolchildren, as a colorful, heuristic and haptic alternative to didactic instruction, Beler lets the material lead and impose its boldness, resistance, and accretive properties. Boundaries between sight and recognition, latency and resolution, figure and abstraction are destabilized as opacity becomes a structural condition, a way of sitting with indeterminacy rather than attempting to resolve it.
Beler received her MA in Photographic Studies from Leiden University (NL) and her BA in Graphic Design from Bilkent University (Ankara, TR). She has exhibited locally and internationally, and participated in several local and international residencies, the most recent being in Ayvalık (TR), Rotterdam (NL) and Düsseldorf (DE).