The Art Collection

Hamra Abbas’s work Garden 3 reimagines the garden as a site of both historical and personal memory. Created using the marble inlay technique with stones such as lapis lazuli, serpentine, and jade, the pieces explore themes of displacement, identity, time, beauty, and fragility. By merging historical and contemporary references, Abbas invites the viewer to consider the garden both as a metaphor for personal experience and as a space to reflect on the relationship between nature, memory, and history.

Details:
Garden 3, 2024.

The Fourth Medusa is a contemporary artwork created using fiberglass instead of marble, referencing the three historical Medusa heads of Istanbul. Through photogrammetry, the form is fragmented and reshaped, questioning the mythology of Medusa, the concept of reflection, and the relationship between art and reality. In her “Bastardization” series, İrem Günaydın transforms the Medusa heads into a mold—detaching them from their historical context and adding a new layer of meaning. This work reinterprets the dynamics between mythology, art, and architecture by introducing a fourth dimension to the traditional narrative.

Details:
Fourth Medusa, 2022.

Eskici combines the geological themes she focused on in the 2018 Stratigrapher exhibition with Riegel’s concept of the “natural monument.” These monuments, formed without any human intervention, represent natural, organic, or inorganic entities that must be preserved. With this concept, the artist establishes a connection with “Unwanted Monuments,” placing the wood—whose directional structure draws attention—at the center of the series.

Details:
Unintended Monument No: 4, 2022.

Flavio Cerqueira’s works reveal social and personal vulnerabilities through young figures cast in bronze. His sculptures focus on human states such as innocence, solitude, and anticipation, inviting the viewer into an intense emotional experience. It’s Better Not to Know features a figure turned against the wall with closed eyes, symbolizing the rejection of knowledge and representing both personal protection and societal blindness. Cerqueira’s simple yet powerful style extends from the everyday to universal inquiries.

Details:
It's Better Not to Know, 2024.

Karen Arakel’s art is marked by elements of surprise, unexpected contrasts, and a rebellious approach to convention. Drawing inspiration from surrealism, her works often incorporate political and social themes, guided by her philosophy that “everything intelligent is simple.” Enriched with allegories of nature, human figures, illusions, and symbols, Arakel’s pieces invite viewers on an introspective journey. By defying the rules of perspective and gravity, she transforms dreams, instincts, fears, and pure unity into a compelling visual narrative.

Details:
Untitled, 2020.

Details:
Untitled, 2020.

Details:
Untitled, 2020.

Bülent Özgören’s photograph Kalafat generally explores themes of history, labor, and collective memory. The term “kalafat” refers to the process of sealing the gaps between a ship’s planks, and in the photograph, it symbolizes both a tangible practice of labor and a cultural continuity connecting the past with the present. Özgören’s work invites the viewer to reflect on the esthetics of everyday work and the relationship between space and memory shaped over time.

Details:
Kalafat, 1982.

Belkıs Balpınar’s works merge traditional Anatolian carpet weaving techniques with contemporary art, giving her pieces not only an aesthetic but also a conceptual dimension. In her work İçe Dönüş, themes of inner exploration, self-discovery, and the individual’s inner world come to the forefront. Using the weaving‑ma technique, Balpınar creates voids and free threads that introduce spatial multidimensionality, offering the viewer not only the carpet itself but also an experience of different dimensions of the universe, as well as perceptions of time and space.

Details:
Introspection - I / İçe Dönüş - I, 2023.

Six boxer portraits, believed to be taken in Berlin in the 1910s, resurfaced years later at an auction in İstanbul. Tunca reimagines these images to reconstruct the figure of Sabri Mahir, whose life is veiled in myth. He is accompanied by Arthur Cravan - a boxer-poet whose death remains a mystery.

Details:
Archival Print on Hannemühle 2021.

Conceptually linked to “The Female Bird Builds the Nest,” the artwork “What Accumulates in the Kitchen” explores the roles of women in society. Today, women achieve countless successes, yet are still expected — according to social norms — to carry the full weight of domestic responsibilities, embodying the identity of the “female bird.” While the phrase “the female bird builds the nest” is often meant to praise women, it ultimately confines them to the domestic sphere. The sculpture’s stacked plate forms evoke a totemic quality, representing the artist’s vision of the female body as a permanent fixture in the kitchen. This imagery materializes the layered identities and responsibilities imposed on women, highlighting the tension between empowerment and traditional expectation.

Details:
Piled up Dishes, 2022.

Antonie Melling’s Istanbul engravings are highly valuable works that document late 18th to early 19th century Istanbul in remarkable detail, both artistically and historically.

Melling arrived in Istanbul in 1795 and closely observed the city while serving as a court architect. In 1819, he published his album Voyage Pittoresque de Constantinople et des Rives du Bosphore in Paris, featuring 48 engravings that immortalize Bosphorus landscapes, palaces, mosques, and scenes of daily life. These works are regarded as some of the most reliable depictions of İstanbul from the pre-photography era.

Details:
Voyage Pittoresque de Constantinople et des Rives du Bosphore

Sükan is a versatile artist educated in interior architecture and photography. Their work focuses on ideas that question the boundaries of human perception, exploring the limits between the physical and the virtual, the visible and the invisible. Their art presents a challenging narrative that initially meets the viewer’s expectations but ultimately disrupts and overturns that perception in practice.
Sükan’s conceptual practice which investigates perception, visibility, and the in-between space of the physical and virtual was integrated into the intimate context of Aliée’s rooms through a set of four selected works. These were adapted and applied onto custom-designed maxi-bars created by renowned architects Dayna Lee and Ted Berner, who are responsible for the architectural identity of the Aliée Istanbul.

Details:
UNTITLED, 2018.

The artist creates organic and rhythmic narratives through surface and texture using building materials. On the surfaces he manipulates with spatula and chisel, he develops reliefs that provide both visual and tactile experiences, integrating them into architectural projects to establish a connection between space and surface. The five special designs he prepared for Aliée redefine the expressive language of the surface by combining industrial techniques with handcrafted work.

Room of Sultan Ahmed II (Fruit Room)

Located in the Harem section of Topkapı Palace, the Room of Sultan Ahmed III is also known as the "Fruit Room" due to the fruit paintings adorning its walls. Reflecting the elegance of the Tulip Era, the stylized and naturalistic fruit motifs symbolize abundance.

The walls feature vases and pots filled with flowers painted in miniature style, showcasing the artistic approach of the period. Bouquets in golden vases and fruit depictions on ceramic plates reveal the splendor of the Ottoman palace. This room served as a private space where sultans would occasionally rest and enjoy fruit.

Melih Çebi’s Halep to İstiklal Street explores themes of migration, history, and space through a journey from Aleppo to Istanbul. The work brings together past and present, individual experiences and collective memory, prompting the viewer to reflect on the connections between cities and their people.

Details:
Halep to İstiklal Street, 2025.