Traces and Roots
From 4 October 2025 to 18 January 2026, the exhibition “Traces and Roots: Reflections of Anatolia in Contemporary Turkish Art” will be on view at the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE in Riga.
Anatolia, the crossroads of Europe and Asia, has been a meeting point for different cultures since the dawn of civilization, where layer upon layer has formed the values of modern Turkey. The exhibition Traces and Roots. Reflections of Anatolia in Contemporary Art of Turkey brings together twelve prominent artists from Turkey whose works reveal the story of the encounter between Anatolia's thousands of years of cultural heritage and contemporary art.
Inspired by the rich history and culture of their homeland, both intellectually and visually, these artists combine traces of Anatolia's past, traditional motifs and symbols with contemporary artistic language and unique forms of expression. The exhibition thus takes the viewer on an impressive journey from the past to the present.
Exhibition artists:
Alaybey Karoğlu
Alaybey Karoğlu often prefers simplified, abstract forms and factures in his works, reminiscent of moody landscapes, sometimes complemented by human figures from the past. His paintings are characterized by expressive colour fields and broad brushstrokes. Karoğlu combines symbolism, cultural motifs and personal iconography that are important to Anatolia, for example, using images such as Mavi Türkü (Blue Folk Song) to make the narrative multi-layered in terms of content.
Aydin Ayan
Aydin Ayan's paintings combine history, mythology and social events. He uses Anatolian legends, folk tales and cultural motifs, interpreting them in detailed narratives that also incorporate symbolic elements characteristic of this ancient region. Ajan's works contain both traces of the past and a critical view of today's world.
Beril Anilanmert
Beril Anilanmert’s work includes dynamic, expressive ceramic sculptures and ceramic two-dimensional paintings. She incorporates metal, textiles and glass into traditional ceramic materials, highlighting the aesthetics of incompleteness. Her contemporary works draw thematic inspiration from mythology and social life.
Devrim Erbil (Selen Karaibrahim)
Devrim Erbil combines abstraction and figurative elements in his painting. Urban landscapes occupy a particularly important place in his artistic narrative – rhythmically composed compositions, captured as if from a bird's eye view, with motifs from Anatolian architecture and nature. Here, the linear aesthetics of traditional Turkish art, which resonates with the art of calligraphy, merges with a deliberately chosen monochrome or limited colour palette.
Fevzi Karakoç
Fevzi Karakoç is drawn to mysticism, the human emotional world, and symbolic images (birds, horses, trees), which he uses to explore existential themes. Anatolian nature, folklore, Eastern philosophy, and Turkish poetry are Karakoç's sources of inspiration. The rhythmically painted figures interact with the expressive backgrounds, giving the art works additional depth.
Habip Aydoğdu
Habip Aydoğdu paintings are saturated with powerful colour energy and dynamism. The intense use of red tones in his abstract compositions symbolizes the artist's belonging and passion for his native Anatolia. It is a history of struggles and cultural clashes, the echoes of which can still be felt today.
Hasan Pekmezci
Hasan Pekmezci vividly represents the tradition of figurative painting in Turkey, focusing on Turkish culture and human emotions. His works combine figurative and expressionist elements with a strong sense of narrative and identity. Inspired by both everyday life and folk art, Pekmezci reinterprets the visual heritage of Anatolia.
Resul Aytemur
Resul Aytemur mostly paints urban scenes – street markets, transport stops, squares and parks. These are usually multi-figure compositions with a rich colour palette, conveying the atmosphere of the city: human relationships, joy, collective tension or a spirit of protest.
Şükran Pekmezci
Şükran Pekmezci emphasizes the role of women in Anatolian culture. The depiction of ritualized events in everyday life creates a link between the past and the present, also recalling ancient craft skills: ceramics, weaving, and miniature painting. Pekmezci`s painting themes are rooted in the events of rural village life: weddings, folk festivals, the arrival of the first snow, and reflect the unmediated authenticity of Anatolian traditions.
Temür Köran
Temür Köran is a contemporary Turkish painter known for his expressive visual language, which combines abstract and figurative elements with rich colours and dynamic compositions. His works often reflect themes of memory, identity, and the human emotional state.
Yalçin Gökçebağ
Yalçin Gökçebağ paints idyllic scenes of rural life of Anatolia, showing the mutual rhythms of man and nature, peaceful everyday life, where work alternates with rest. In his compositions, the perspective from above gives the depicted flow of life a timelessness and a slightly nostalgic atmosphere.
Zehra Çobanli
At first glance, Zehra Çobanli's ceramic works often seem to be associated with intimate, typically feminine elements and activities – shoes, tea/coffee rituals, feeding poultry. But these everyday motifs form a narrative around themes such as status, migration and vulnerability. Çobanli combines the Anatolian ceramic heritage with conceptual art, reinterpreting historical motifs in a contemporary context.
The exhibition is organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey and the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Latvia in cooperation with the Latvian National Museum of Art / Art Museum Riga Bourse.