Memory of Matter and the Alchemy of Concentration: Tom Fellows’s “CONCENTRATE” Exhibition at Ruzy Gallery in Its Final Weeks!

In the noisy and distracting rhythm of Istanbul, sometimes stopping to focus on a single point, a single object, or the depth of a material offers an invaluable mental escape. Ruzy Gallery continues to invite viewers to precisely such an experience of concentration since May with Turkey-based British artist Tom Fellows’s solo exhibition titled “CONCENTRATE”. Meeting art lovers in the heart of Etiler, this impressive selection can be visited until August 25, 2026. Before summer ends, you have only a few days left to see the sense of hidden movement behind the layers with your own eyes.

In the exhibition, Fellows addresses the concept of “concentration” on two different yet perfectly complementary axes: mental and physical. On one hand, this concept serves as a call to gather our minds into a single focus in the digital age where we are constantly exposed to stimuli. On the other hand, it physically describes matter shrinking under high pressure and thermal interventions to assume a much denser, more resistant form. In the artist’s practice shuttling between canvas and sculptural production processes, material is not a passive element applied casually to the surface; it is a living mass constantly transforming through repetitive interventions such as compression, layering, and erosion. The surface, in this process, becomes a geological deposit where time, effort expended, and the material’s own memory are visibly carved.

For Fellows, the surface of a work is never a final or static endpoint. Even the initial layers, no longer visible to the eye, continue to make their presence and energy felt in the artwork. The artist allows form to slowly emerge over time, as if mimicking millions of years of geological stratification processes. One of the most captivating details of the exhibition is the special installation work connecting Ruzy Gallery’s two separate exhibition spaces, bringing the sense of spatial continuity to its peak. The moment we think we are looking at a stationary object, we are left alone with the immense sense of pressure and movement behind that surface.

“CONCENTRATE”, where Tom Fellows generously displays the physical intelligence carried by surfaces and the transformative power of matter, goes beyond an ordinary act of exhibition viewing, inviting the audience into a deep and meditative way of seeing. We highly recommend that you do not miss this quiet yet powerful exhibition closing its doors on August 25.