ARTisSPECTRUM...The Chelsea  Perspective 

Nihal Kececi's paintings are explorations of color inspired by immediate sensory impressions. She presents "abstract landscapes" whose markers are bursts of sunlight confronting shadow, with gold and silver light flowering from the depths of dark background. Her subject matter is often the tranquility of private individual moments, as well as shared instances of ecstasy and pleasure. Bypassing the controlling mind, she uses light and shadow equally to present her subjects, as well as colors that play upon the eye as saturated light, framed by deep browns and stony blues, invoking both the beautiful anarchy of nature as well as the order naturally imposed on sensations by the human brain. Her work strikes a balance between structure and energy, especially in her portraits, where she reveals figures in intimate moments while also maintaining a sense of enigma. Her subjects are clear via gestures suggesting varying emotional states, and yet still they remain mysteries. This dichotomy is key--the fine balance between revealing and withholding, a mood especially true of her nudes, in which an unavoidable melancholy pervades. Whether portraying the ecstatic moments of whirling dervishes, dramatic landscapes or quiet domestic scenes, Nihal Kececi has staked a claim to her own territory, one that brings silence as well as poetry to the visual world she has captured.