Can we represent time? Can we stop it, freeze it in an instant? Do we perceive space correctly These unsolvable, metaphysical questions often cross our minds when facing a work of art. Uysal’s artistic practice gives perceptible existence to those thoughts. What role exactly does the artist play, in the process of creating an artwork? Such as Don Quixote facing the windmills, he defies the laws of nature through his sculptures, videos and installations. He materializes notions that are theoretically impossible to represent. He twists, shapes, distorts reality, bringing it beyond its boundaries. He offers concrete solutions to abstract problems.

The artist is renowned for his ability to subvert time and space : “Space, as we perceive it, is an illusion, he says. Our eyes only allow us to reconstitute reality in two dimensions, and it is through movement that we grasp the third one. Space is not really something we can see. We feel it”.

With the Peel series (2012) the gallery walls became the artwork. Here Uysal goes one step further: the gallery space becomes the author. The artist steps aside to let the walls, their materials, the specific setting of the space express themselves.This exhibition is also a tribute to the artist’s relationship with France, a country he knows well. It can be seen as a subtle and irreverent homage to Cartesianism. In 2008, Mehmet Ali Uysal was artist-in-residence at the Cité International des Arts. He exhibited a large-scale installation in Lorraine (Skin, Vent des forêts)