A Line Seeks the Absolute

Izmir Culture Park, Izmir
20 September – 11 November, 2025

A Line Seeks the Absolute marked a new phase in Zibeyda Seyidova’s exploration of abstraction as a form of metaphysical inquiry. Presented by the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality within the civic setting of Izmir Culture Park, the exhibition situated painting as a space of reflection embedded within the life of the city.

The exhibition introduced a new body of work in which Seyidova reduced her language to its most elemental gestures. Dense layers of oil paint formed restrained fields in tones of grey, ivory, and soft earth. Across these surfaces, diagonal lines appeared as subtle ruptures—at once fractures and passages—suggesting movement toward what lies beyond visibility. Here, abstraction functioned not as formal experimentation but as a spiritual practice, where each line operated as an act of invocation.

For Seyidova, the line becomes both boundary and horizon: a threshold where the visible yields to the unseen. Painting is approached as remembrance rather than representation, resonating with the Islamic tradition of dhikr—a continual return toward the absolute. The canvases echo the philosophical tension between the manifest (ẓāhir) and the hidden (bāṭin), allowing meaning to emerge through restraint and silence.

Installed within the public halls of Izmir Culture Park, the works transformed a civic space into a site of contemplation. Visitors were invited to pause, to dwell within surfaces that at first appeared austere but gradually revealed a sense of depth and plenitude. Through reduced geometry and muted tonality, the canvases opened rather than enclosed perception, creating spaces where vision encounters its limits and the unseen becomes perceptible.

With A Line Seeks the Absolute, Seyidova demonstrated how painting, stripped of excess, can carry profound metaphysical resonance. The exhibition affirmed abstraction as a form of invocation, suggesting that even the simplest gesture—a single line—can bear the weight of transcendence.