Sinan Logie's new exhibition resembles a construction site. It is a show of more or less monochrome works. Concrete and formalistic, it seems to have emerged from an architect's mind. It has. Logie is a graduate of Victor Horta Higher Institute of Architecture. Born in Brussels in 1973, he has an acute sense of form and the calculating mind of an architect. He takes apparent joy in bringing forms together and contrasting them - a mathematical intellect transports objects and structures onto the two-dimensional canvas as if they were subjects of a scientific inquiry. Viewers may find Logie's work devoid of emotion, but there is something passionate about his detachment.

In "Fluid Structures," one of the dark paintings in Logie's new exhibition, the cityscape has a nightmarish quality - one can just make out the outlines of landmark buildings that give way to a sense of familiarity. But the image is decisively unrealistic. Shadows of the city may remind the viewer of Istanbul, but they can as well be coming from dreams or visions.

"The Elementary Particles," a novel about the lives of two half-brothers by controversial French novelist Michel Houellebecq has inspired Logie and the artist has used the title of Houellebecq's book for his show. "I decided on the title of the exhibition after all the works were completed," Logie said in an interview last week.

"I wanted to link 'The Elementary Particles' with 'The Nature of Chaos," my first show [in 2014] at Öktem Aykut. I come from the field of architecture and urban theory, and I am also deeply influenced by scientific studies in these fields at both microscopic and macroscopic scale. Our quest to understand our environment is deeply linked to our skills to develop abstract concepts. Architecture and cities embody these mental processes."

Readers of Houellebecq's latest novel, "Submission," will remember the miserable state of mind of the book's protagonist. Logie found himself in a similar state of mind recently, and Houellebecq's dark sense of humor and realism helped him during those difficult times.

"I produced those works during a period in which my life was shaken," he said. 

....

Architecture also seems to define Logie's painting techniques. "Producing architecture or an artwork is about making choices," he said. "And each choice you make pushes you to renounce something else. I work horizontally on tables, as if I am drawing plans or sections. But the process is closer to a physical performance where I am mainly using tools and materials from the construction field. Finalizing an architectural project or an artwork are both constant struggles - one works against rules and his own, personal limits. I don't know if I celebrate or want to get rid of this link with architecture. It's probably too deeply rooted in my mind. I can only accept it."

....

In another essay, Logie points to the connection between the city and democracy. He mentions how "new ways of envisioning the city are teaching us to read the city as a multilayered complex organism, in which multiple actors can contribute to new futures. Istanbul or Brussels are in one way or another going to evolve, as they always did. The change can be seen as an opportunity to experiment new spaces and processes within the social field, acting with modesty, with the knowledge that some of the results will be acceptable or censurable in the future, regarding the multiple possible through reality. The city is a space for debate; debate as the essence of democracy."

....