Fluteplayer Under Galata Bridge 2013

Editor: Here we have Tal R's "Fluteplayer Under Galata Bridge," painted in 2013, using acrylic. There's something almost dreamlike about the angular composition and subdued colours. What strikes you most about this piece? Curator: It feels like a memory, doesn't it? The palette is like looking through aged glass, muted but somehow still vibrant. I see the geometry fighting against the intimacy of the scene – the figure, quite small really, dwarfed by the structure around him. But that flute – that’s the defiant note, isn't it? Editor: Defiant how? Curator: Well, it's humanizing everything, softening the rigid lines of the bridge. It says, “Even in a concrete world, there's space for music, for feeling, for a little bit of whimsy.” It also speaks to a conversation that happens in art and music, about making your own place in this world. Can you feel the melancholy of that tune drifting on the Bosphorus air? Editor: I do see it now! Before it felt flat but when you describe him fighting against the hard angles with this moment of humanity. How do you think the city plays into that? Curator: A cityscape, especially a modern one, can feel isolating. Tal R, with that splash of unexpected yellow and those windows like curious eyes, it makes it human. And that small figure makes it magical. The entire image then transforms into something unexpected and quite warm! Editor: I like the idea of unexpected warmth. Thanks, I see so much more in this piece now. Curator: And that is the loveliest kind of seeing, isn’t it? Always discovering new warmths and surprising magic.