Istanbul-based Ali Gulec is a graphic artist with a difference. His surreal illustrations are like identikit drawings aiming to prosecute the material arts. Working on the margins of what is possible with his medium, Gulec's forms, figures, and situations are remarkable for their clarity and strength of purpose, and maintain an iconographic intensity that would make any rock band bereft of an album cover salivate with admiration.

A reveler poses for pictures at the Victorian Picnic during the Wave and Goth festival in Leipzig June 6, 2014. The annual festival, known in Germany as Wave-Gotik Treffen (WGT), features over 150 bands and artist in venues all over the city playing Gothic rock and other styles of the dark wave music subculture. The event, one of the biggest of its kind, attracts a regular audience of up to 20,000, the organizers said. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Fyn Baily aged eight at the Bloodstock festival on August 13, 2011 in Walton-on-Trent, United Kingdom. Bloodstock is the UK's largest heavy metal festival and features both established and unsigned bands over four days. (Photo by Bethany Clarke/Getty Images)

A women sell food under the wing of a plane wreckage being used as housing in M'Poko Internally Displaced Persons camp in Bangui, Central African Republic on Saturday, February 13, 2016. The M'Poko IDP camp, just outside the capitol's airport, currently houses close to 20,000 people displaced due to the ongoing conflict in Central African Republic. (Photo by Jane Hahn/The Washington Post)

A Dead Leaf butterfly (Kallima inachu formosana, also called Orange Oakleaf Butterfly) rests on a tree trunk at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Tawian, 03 August 2019. Dead Leaf butterfly can be found in Tropical Asia from India to Japan. When its wings close, it resembles a dead leaf, providing camouflage against predators including birds, ants, spiders and wasps. (Photo by David Chang/EPA/EFE)

England's full-back Freddie Steward dives across the line to score a try chased by Japan's wing Lomano Lemeki (L) during the France 2023 Rugby World Cup Pool D match between England and Japan at Stade de Nice in Nice, southern France on September 17, 2023. (Photo by Nicolas Tucat/AFP Photo)

In this October 6, 1976, file photo, a right-wing student, center foreground, draws his arm back to strike a captured and wounded leftist student being taken by police to an ambulance in during a student massacre in Bangkok, Thailand. This year’s anti-government protests are seeking new elections, a more democratic constitution and an end to intimidation of political activists. Their speeches have repeatedly highlighted the 1976 tragedy, piquing the interest of the current generation in what their forebears faced. (Photo by Neal Ulevich/AP Photo/File)

“On Friday, after something of a show trial, three young women in a Russian punk band were found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison for an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral earlier this year”. – Daniel Schwartz via CBC News

Photo: A woman wears on her chest the text “free p*ssy riot” as a demonstration by supporters of the jailed feminist punk band p*ssy Riot takes place outside the Russian Embassy on August 17, 2012 in London, England. The three women who staged an anti-Kremlin protest in a church in February, were found guilty today of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, and could face a three-year jail sentence. Supporters are gathering in several cities around the world today as a mark of solidarity. (Photo by Dan Kitwood)