The paintings in this exhibit embody a celebration and nostalgia for the ephemerality of summer – how fragile, how precious – the relationship between what we feel and the elements. The air glitters and time dilates, full of promise, with equal parts anticipation and languor. The sensation of water enveloping the body and the heaviness of the air slide us into a relaxed apathy, an exchange and fusion of elements sating and stoking desire at the same time.

During summer, I often have a feeling of melancholy, like I was a spectator of my own life, as if I were watching moments of poetic insouciance from a distance. These works become the perception of time. Kissing the sun: whereby ordinary subjects take on new dimensions at their glimmering apogee, symbolizing a myth of eternal youth.

Ayline Olukman was born in Strasbourg, France and graduated with an MFA from L’École des Arts Decoratifs in Strasbourg in 2005. The artist travelled extensively for several years and now works and resides in Brooklyn NY.

After graduating from ESAD, Olukman was offered her first solo exhibition at Gallery Bertrand Gillig, Strasbourg. Since then the artist has exhibited her work in Paris (Galerie Artima), Strasbourg (Gallery Bertrand Gillig), Istanbul (Alan Istanbul Gallery), Miami (Ortega Walkman Gallery), and New York (Bertrand Delacroix Gallery and Massey Lyuben Gallery). The artist’s work has been auctioned numerous times at leading auction houses including Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Olukman also participated in St’art Art fair, Strasbourg since 2012; Istanbul’s CI Art Fair from 2012 to 2015; Scope Art Fair New York, in 2014 and Basel in June 2012; and Art Shanghai through the Licorn Asia, in 2008.