Fallen City II 1982

Erol Akyavaş made this painting, Fallen City II, with paint on canvas. The way he works with the paint itself, that’s the key for me. The blues are just pools of dreamy texture, with the built-up darks looming above. Down below, the city walls look like broken teeth. Look closely, and you can see how the surface is worked and reworked. Scratches, layers, and a real sense of pushing the material around. It feels like a battle, not a pretty picture. That roof in the bottom right corner, with its criss-cross hatching, is like a little map in itself. It’s dense, almost claustrophobic, a real contrast to the airy blues behind. But they need each other. This kind of struggle between chaos and control, that’s what painting is all about. It reminds me a bit of Anselm Kiefer's landscapes, these huge, wrecked spaces, full of memory and loss. Ultimately, it is about an ongoing investigation, with no easy answers.