Who Are You?

Who Are You? is a solo exhibition of new paintings by Seldem Kargı at C.A.M. Galeri in Çukurcuma, Istanbul, running from 3 October to 15 November 2026. Kargı, born in Ankara in 1985, shows figurative works made in 2026 in mixed media on canvas. The image the gallery released with the show is Bir Tek Masa Sağlam Kaldı, a horizontal canvas of 95 by 208 cm. On a bright yellow ground, odd diners crowd a long white table set with plates, glasses and carafes, while a shaggy animal looks on from the right.

The title comes from a short text by the artist that opens the exhibition. She describes waking at four in the morning with the question already in her head. From there she asks how much of what we call our own really is ours: a partner, a friend, a child, a plant in a pot, a passing idea. She wonders too whether a drawn line looks the same to someone else.

Her figures begin as daydreams that come to her during the busy hours of ordinary life. She paints them without preliminary sketches, so each image arrives unplanned on the canvas. The bodies that result seem to come from somewhere other than this world. Kargı speaks of bringing them into being, then standing in front of them to ask who they are. The gallery reads the show as a study of ownership and distance, in which each new viewer remakes the image.

Kargı trained in music in Izmir and taught piano and cello before turning fully to art. Between 2014 and 2017 she wrote and illustrated personalised stories as handmade books, and she has painted on canvas since 2018. She works from a studio in Urla, near Izmir. This is her third solo exhibition with C.A.M. Galeri, after Sensin Bensin in 2022 and Aklımın Dörtnalı in 2024. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 6.30pm.