Hanging side by side on opposite walls, eight three-metre-high paintings dominate the central room of Leyla Yenirce’s solo show ‘Ich krieg Geschwindigkeit’ (I’m Gaining Speed). Filled with aggressive swirls and splotches of blue, red, yellow, pink and purple paint, they seem to hum with frenetic energy. Silkscreen prints of soldiers from the Women’s Protection Unit (YPJ), an all-female Kurdish military group, structure every composition, at times almost unrecognizable amid multiple layers of oil paint and acrylic spray. In Polterabend (Bachelor Party, 2022), for instance, the outline of a soldier’s body and her AK47 are barely visible through dark blue circles and traces of yellow. The blurred lines of a blueprint rendered in Barbie pink creep across the top of the painting, while other sections of the canvas are left blank.
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