This comprehensive retrospective, spanning 22 years of production, examines Claire Arkas’s artistic practice not as a sequence of periods, but as a sustained mode of seeing. Bringing together a diverse selection of works, from self-portraits to landscapes executed in different techniques, the exhibition presents the transformation of perception through time at Arkas Art Alaçatı.
With her retrospective exhibition Seeing Comes Before Words, covering 22 years of artistic practice, Claire Arkas presents her work to audiences at Arkas Art Alaçatı. The exhibition, which can be visited from May 15 to November 1, features 83 works produced during different stages of the artist’s career.
Curated by Karoly Aliotti and led by Özlem Tunca as Project Director, the exhibition moves beyond the conventional definition of a solo exhibition, approaching Claire Arkas’s body of work not through a chronological sequence but through a continuous practice of seeing. Themes that recur throughout the years emerge in this retrospective not as repetition, but as part of a gaze that deepens over time.
Seeing Comes Before Words, the title of the exhibition, suggests that perception exists before language. Claire Arkas’s paintings engage less with the object being viewed and more with the manner of viewing itself. In front of the works, the audience is invited not to search for explanation, but to linger and observe.
Self-Portraits: The Gaze Directed Toward the Self
The self-portraits, which occupy a distinctive place within the exhibition, mark a defining threshold in Claire Arkas’s artistic practice. In these works, self-portraiture functions less as a representation of identity and more as an expression of the gaze turning inward upon itself. Rather than establishing a direct relationship with the viewer, the figures merge with their surroundings; they often recede, become simplified, and at times almost dissolve into ambiguity.
This approach forms a quiet yet powerful structure at the center of the retrospective, revealing how the artist has continually redefined her own presence within painting over the years.
Continuity Across Techniques
The selection, consisting of paintings, drawings, watercolors, and lithographs, reveals the continuity Claire Arkas establishes across different techniques. In particular, the line-based works emphasize that drawing is not merely a preparatory stage in her practice, but a field of thought and perception in its own right.
The works produced through different techniques create not so much a sense of aesthetic variety as one of disciplined coherence. This sense of unity emerges as a central pillar of the retrospective’s curatorial structure.
Light, Time, and Continuity
In Claire Arkas’s paintings, light emerges not as a tool that provides clarity, but as an element that delays and deepens perception. It breaks apart across surfaces, disperses, and never settles into a single meaning. The works brought together in the exhibition make this painterly effect of time distinctly perceptible.
In this practice, repetition is not a matter of routine, but a form of visual persistence. Instead of relying on one dominant image, the exhibition presents the viewer with a coherence that gradually unfolds through time.
The Intersection of Time and Space
The exhibition’s presentation at Arkas Art Alaçatı reinforces Claire Arkas’s desire to share her artistic practice within a public context. Founded by Lucien Arkas, who has supported culture and the arts for many years, Arkas Art Alaçatı now hosts the artist’s 22-year body of work through this retrospective. While the venue establishes a natural connection with the exhibition’s calm and time-oriented structure, it also offers viewers the opportunity to experience the works in a state of slowness and contemplation.
At the exhibition opening, Claire Arkas remarked: “I envisioned this exhibition not as an act of revisiting the past or bringing a period to an end, but as an opportunity to observe how a mode of seeing I have maintained for years stands side by side today. Revisiting the same questions repeatedly is not a sign of hesitation for me; rather, it is my way of sustaining the act of looking. Over time, it was not the questions that changed, but the way I approached them. Seeing has always preceded narration for me; words can clarify, but they should not come before the act of seeing. Some of the paintings in this exhibition open the way to new beginnings, while also offering a space in which I can reflect on and question myself. Within an exhibition that covers such an extended period, I regard every phase of production as a distinct step. Reencountering the works I produced in the studio within the exhibition setting enables me to look at them with a renewed perspective. In this process, material selection also evolves through the painting’s own guidance; the objects I come across generate new perceptions for me, and I generally choose to address this effect alongside a figure. Incorporating my own figure into the paintings creates an experience that is both demanding and freeing. Lately, I have observed that the background has become increasingly significant. I am particularly drawn to reflections on glass and water, nourished by the visual depth created through transparency. I would like this exhibition to encourage viewers first to stop, and then to think,” she stated.
Speaking about the exhibition, curator Karoly Aliotti noted: “Claire Arkas’s paintings do not aim to describe the visible world as much as they seek to show how it comes into visibility. Here, light appears not as illumination, but as a question; it breaks across surfaces, delays itself, and never completely reveals its entirety. Pools, glass planes, figures, and trees function less as objects than as thresholds through which light searches for its own shape. This practice is not a visual language built through repetition, but a way of seeing that has been continuously sustained and reconsidered over time.”
Arkas Holding Chairman Lucien Arkas remarked: “Maintaining artistic production with the same dedication for twenty-two years is not something easily achieved. There is no element of chance in it; what exists are patience, discipline, and continuity. Claire’s connection with painting was never, in my eyes, limited to a single moment. Claire’s connection with art was never tied to a single moment for me; it grew stronger over the years through childhood drawings left on the kitchen table, long stretches of silence behind closed doors spent drawing, and the first shared excitement about art between father and daughter. The real significance of this exhibition at Arkas Art Alaçatı does not come from the familiarity associated with a family name, but from the authentic presence of Claire’s artistic identity—formed through her own labor, discipline, and voice—within this space. In this sense, the exhibition emerges not only as a personal source of pride, but as a thoughtful and emotionally resonant expression of a journey that has been rightfully earned.”
