Wabi-sabi

Wabi-sabi is a two-person exhibition of work by Ercan Akın and Ayşegül Veryeri at Bozlu Art Project, in the Mongeri Binası in Şişli, Istanbul. It runs from 18 September to 14 November 2026 and is curated by İbrahim Cansızoğlu. Akın's work in the show includes an untitled oil on wood panel from 2015 that measures 116.5 by 91 cm. Veryeri's includes an untitled piece from 2026 in grogged clay with applied slip, 23 cm high and 22 cm in diameter.

The show gathers recent work by both artists. It was made together with ZOİ, a flower design studio. On the gallery's banner the title appears in Latin letters and again in Japanese script beside the two names.

Akın was born in İzmir in 1979 and lives and works in Japan. He enrolled in the Department of Basic Sciences at the Ege University State Turkish Music Conservatory in 1998 and left in 2002. He then studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Dokuz Eylül University from 2004, graduating in 2008. He says his work starts from personal problems and invented spaces. In those spaces the fear of being alone fails to match the life people picture for themselves. Besides oil on wood panel he makes ink drawings on paper, several dated 2020. An untitled panel from 2022 is built from 37,415 wooden cubes, each cut by hand and painted in acrylic, across 235 by 160 cm.

Bozlu Art Project gave Akın a solo exhibition, Umutsuz Bekleyiş (Hopeless Wait), in the same building in 2022. It drew on his journeys between Japan and Turkey from 2015 to 2022 and combined painting, photography and installations made for the site. Images of a dead swallow, a dead rabbit and a tree bent by a storm appeared in the work. He also took part in the gallery's group exhibitions in 2023 and 2024. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5.30pm, and parking is available.