An outsider’s eye on Istanbul from within
Hector McDonnell’s paintings of Istanbul, seen through the lens of its everyday life, are presented in Istanbul’s Light, an exhibition organised in collaboration between Şule Gazioğlu Gallery and Winsor Birch at Gallery 8 from 21 to 26 September. We spoke with McDonnell and Şule Gazioğlu about the possibilities of looking at a city from the outside while entering into its inner life, portraying the local without reducing it to the picturesque, and the space this exhibition, extending from Istanbul to London, opens up within the gallery’s international programme
Interview: Merve Akar Akgün
Hector McDonnell, Aqueduct, Oil on panel, 30.5 x 25.5 cm
Hector McDonnell
In your paintings, Istanbul steps away from its monumental silhouette, famed mosques, and the grand vistas of the Bosphorus, revealing itself instead through the quiet corners of apartment buildings, stairwells, shaded terraces, and the interiors of waterfront mansions (yalı). Light on your canvases acts as a substance that unveils the time and lived experience within these spaces. As a painter observing from the outside, what existential pursuit drew you toward this intimate, everyday light rather than the city’s public grandeur?
I think the answer to this is quite simple. I fall in love with the lives of the people I encounter and what they do. When I was living in London, I found wonder in the world of small shops and daily life in the rather humble area where I was living. I began to understand what it was that entranced me: the beauty that we all create around ourselves as we organise our rooms and places of work. These spaces speak so much of how we all make our own places in the world. This has defined the course of my artistic life. Each place I have found myself in has given me new impetus, and in Istanbul it was once again the delight in the everyday that moved me. It is the people, the things they do and the special qualities they create around them that matter. I find that it is the reverberance of light and shade that reveals their magic.
Historically, when a Western artist depicts an Eastern city, there is always a latent risk of falling into orientalism or exoticization. Yet your gaze maintains a tender distance, choosing not to reduce the city to a passive spectacle, but rather engaging intimately with its contemporary rhythm and inner life. Where do the memories you carried back to your studio in Ireland intersect with the sensibilities of painters like Hoca Ali Rıza or Feyhaman Duran, who captured everyday Istanbul with intimacy? How did you steer clear of the picturesque trap?
The exotic is not of interest to me. Paris, Hong Kong, India and Tibet have all been places about which I have created paintings, but I have always looked at the beauty that people create in their lives rather than anything exotic. I approached Istanbul in the same way. Once again, it was the everyday that moved me. I think immediately of a father praying in a mosque while his small children play around him, of the seagulls waiting for their chance around a fishmonger's shop, and of bright trees in the sunlight seen through a conservatory's windows. These are just three of the many beautiful moments I encountered during our time in Istanbul. I have simply tried to capture the life I encountered. The exotic is not what matters to me; it is the people, the things they do and the special qualities they create around themselves.
Soldan sağa;
Hector McDonnell, Pandeli Window, Oil on canvas, 40.5 x 30.5 cm
Hector McDonnell, Waiter in the Pandeli, Oil on canvas, 60 x 40 cm
Hector McDonnell, Pandeli Stairway, Oil on canvas, 60 x 40 cm
The exhibition text notes a striking sensation evoked in the viewer: “I have never been in this room, yet I feel I know it.”This resonates deeply with Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space and the universal archetype of the home as sanctuary. Spanning your practice from Belfast and London to Istanbul, what is it that transforms an unfamiliar geography into such a territory of memory?
I think it is the beauty that people create around themselves. From my early paintings of London to the places I have encountered since, I have always been interested in how people organise their rooms and places of work. These spaces speak so much of how we all make our own places in the world.
That is something I have found wherever I have painted. Each place has given me new impetus. In New York, for instance, I was entranced by the city and every day I saw something new that needed painting. Istanbul has moved me greatly in the same way.
Perhaps what makes an unfamiliar place feel familiar is simply the presence of life within it — the people, what they do, and the particular qualities they create around themselves. These are the things that allow us to recognise something of our own lives in a place we have never visited before.
Soldan sağa;
Hector McDonnell, Filigree Mosque Staircase (Rüstem Paşa Mosque), Oil on canvas, 60 x 40 cm
Hector McDonnell, Figures at the Miharab (Rüstem Paşa Mosque), Oil on panel, 25.5 x 20 cm
Hector McDonnell, Doorway (Rüstem Paşa Mosque), Oil on canvas, 40 × 30 cm
Having observed and captured the light of so many disparate cities and cultures over decades, where do you situate the light and interiority of Istanbul within the broader canvas of art history?
Istanbul is another outstanding metropolis that has given me enormous joy and inspiration. Like Paris, Hong Kong, India, Tibet and New York, it has offered me a new way of looking and a new impetus for painting.
What has particularly moved me in Istanbul is the everyday life of the city and the way light and shade reveal its magic. I have found beauty in the people, in the things they do and in the special qualities they create around themselves.
This exhibition only contains a fragment of the paintings I wish to make about Istanbul. I hope that I will be able to do many more over the next year.
Şule Gazioğlu
In our previous conversation, you described the gallery in Emirgan as “a Turkish/Ottoman room in its simplest form,” and spoke about your passion for bringing stories rooted in this geography into view without reducing them to caricature, while finding a balance between its cultural inheritance and contemporary art. Now, you are bringing the intimate light of Istanbul, as seen through the eyes of an Irish painter, to London. For Şule Gazioğlu Gallery’s first exhibition in London, what curatorial possibilities emerge from presenting a memory so deeply rooted in Istanbul through the eyes of someone encountering the city from the outside?
Hector is an outside eye, but he does not position his gaze in opposition to Istanbul; he immerses himself among its people and observes the city alongside them. I think there is something universal about remaining anonymous amid the luminous details of big cities, witnessing the ordinary and extraordinary aspects of everyday life simply as an observer. This state of being an anonymous observer is also what draws me to Hector’s work. After cities such as New York, Berlin and Belfast, I was very curious about the synergy that would emerge from his painting Istanbul. Hector’s return to Istanbul, a city he has felt passionately connected to since a trip he made many years ago, became a very special encounter for me as well. What excites me most from a curatorial perspective is the way he adapts to the city. While retaining his own gaze, he is able to enter into places and stories in Istanbul that sometimes remain hidden even from the city’s own residents, such as Pandeli, the Fish Market, Zeyrek or a ney-making workshop. For one of Northern Ireland’s prominent painters to incorporate such distinctly “ours” details into his own visual memory actually does much more than look at Istanbul from the outside: he brings the city’s everyday life into his personal archive. For me, this is also where the excitement of presenting this memory in London lies. To see how these moments, which appear so local, so distinctly of Istanbul, might create a new sense of familiarity in another city and among other people…
Following your participation in Photo London, you are now giving your international programme a more permanent footing with this exhibition at Gallery 8. As a gallerist, you have a keen understanding of the position and potential of Turkey’s art ecosystem within the global market, as well as the networks of representation that have yet to be fully established. I see this step as more than an exhibition; it also reflects an effort to bring Turkey’s cultural and visual heritage into an international context without exoticising it. What would you like to say about this?
First of all, thank you very much; it makes me very happy to be seen in this way. At the heart of SG Gallery, there is a quiet ambition to do what has not been done before. I love asking, “Why shouldn’t we?” We have an extraordinary foundation for developing original and creative projects, and sometimes it seems more surprising not to make use of it.
Turkey is a country where both the public agenda and everyday life can be exceptionally intense. This intensity can sometimes push our cultural and creative potential into the background. And yet, with the depth of our historical, cultural and visual heritage, we have a very strong foundation from which to establish a presence in the world’s major art centres and produce distinctive work rooted in Turkey.
I am not only interested in the question, “What is happening in contemporary art in Turkey?” I am more concerned with asking, “What can I bring to the table in this field, and how can I create lasting value over the long term?” Rather than simply following what already exists, I prefer to explore the paths opened up by my own curiosities and intuitions.
This exhibition at Gallery 8 is also a result of that approach. It has been a great pleasure to develop this project on equal terms with Winsor Birch Gallery in the UK. The gallery’s founder, Grant Ford, and its director, Charlie Minter, are highly respected figures in their field, having spent many years at Sotheby’s specialising in British and Irish art. Bringing this project to life together, with each of us feeling connected to it from a different point of departure, has been a very special experience.
The choice of Gallery 8 as the venue is not incidental either. It is an exhibition space with a highly diverse programme that brings together artists, galleries and cultural collaborations from different countries. Its location in St James’s, surrounded by leading galleries and art institutions, also makes it a particularly strategic setting.
When presenting Turkey internationally, rather than placing it within an exoticising narrative, I want its cultural richness to become a natural part of an international context on its own terms. This is the philosophy guiding the development of SG Gallery’s international programme.
Soldan sağa;
Hector McDonnell, Fruit Room, Oil on canvas, 90 x 60 cm
Hector McDonnell, Istanbul Wooden House, Oil on canvas, 76 x 50.5 cm
Hector McDonnell, Night Arcade, Oil on canvas, 30.5 x 25.5 cm
What would you like to say about the Istanbul you will present to audiences through the work of Hector McDonnell, who traces interiors, light and everyday elegance in a metropolis that is constantly transforming and all too often carelessly losing its memory?
Istanbul is a unique centre where different cultures have taken root and blended together. Part of its beauty lies in its resilience. Despite all the damage we have inflicted on it, somehow it never seems to lose any of its light or beauty. For me, it remains the most beautiful city in the world. In Hector’s work, we will see many details of Istanbul that we carry in our hearts and memories, details that feel familiar, warm and deeply our own. I believe that anyone who has experienced the city and given their heart to it will find something of themselves in these works. Hector approaches Istanbul with sincerity, capturing its vibrant, layered and dynamic spirit, shaped by the interweaving of different cultures and stories. We are presenting a very special series of works that convey, in particular, the city’s deep blues, its light and shadows, and its restless spirit.
Yorumlar