Reyhan Gulses Demircioglu was born in Istanbul but now paints from her studio in Santa Monica, a city where the light seems to linger just long enough to inspire. Her oil paintings are big—both in scale and emotion. They mix finely detailed, almost photographic figures with backgrounds that feel like dreams slipping through your fingers. There’s something cinematic about them, as though you’ve stumbled into the middle of a story and have to fill in the rest yourself.

“I’m drawn to the places where realism meets reflection,” Reyhan told My Modern Met. “The moments I paint are often quiet ones—but they carry weight. A look, a shift in posture—those small things speak volumes.” And you can see it, too. Her portraits don’t scream; they hum with feeling.

One painting that stands out is Against the Wind. It shows a woman turning sharply, as if something just called her name from deep within a forest—or maybe from somewhere inside her. That sense of in-between—between thought and action, memory and reality—is where Reyhan’s work lives.

None of her figures are real people. “They’re imagined,” she says. “They’re more like emotional placeholders—symbols of things we all carry.” That’s why the paintings feel personal, even if you’ve never seen the face before. You recognize the emotion, not the person.

Her style is unmistakable. Stark black-and-white figures seem to emerge from—or dissolve into—explosions of abstract color. It’s a beautiful contradiction. “I like when realism and abstraction push against each other,” she says. “When they blend and blur, you get something more open, more alive.”

Technique matters too. Her brushwork is so subtle that at first glance, you might think the portraits are airbrushed. But look closely and you’ll notice thicker paint in key spots—an intentional break in the surface that adds texture and weight. “I use layers and layers of paint,” she explains. “Most of the strokes disappear into the image, but I leave some visible, like signposts.”

You can see a few of her pieces below—and if you’re curious, her Instagram is a treasure trove of visual stories waiting to be explored. Go take a look. Her work doesn’t just ask to be seen—it asks to be felt.