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Ugur Gallenkus is a turkish artist who uses collage art to juxtapose images of privileged Western cultures with images of war-torn nations in the middle east. The artist’s works are unflinching, often jarring, and dissect reality while still allowing the viewer space to form their own opinions.

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The artist’s technical skill with these collages lends to closer examination of the images -- the photographs that he selects are striking enough in their own way, but Gallenkus seems to have a good sense of composition, knowing exactly where to crop and join images for maximum impact. At times he positions shapes and objects in such a way as to appear as though they’re interacting, or at least representing two halves of the same setting. A see-saw becomes the barrel of a tank-mounted cannon, while children from two nations appear almost to be sitting across from one another.

In other works, Gallenkus employs a sense of conceptual symmetry, juxtaposing images with different compositions but similar subject matter to make his point.

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