MEHMET YILMAZ

Galeri Soyut is hosting a solo painting exhibition titled “CÉZANNE ve SEZAN” by Prof. Dr. Mehmet Yılmaz, featuring works he has been creating over the last two years, from April 17 to May 9, 2026. On view in Hall B and C in Çankaya, the exhibition presents a comprehensive selection consisting of thirty-six paintings and one installation. The opening reception of the exhibition will take place on Friday, April 17, at 18:00.

You can access the digital catalog prepared specifically for the exhibition from this address.

In this series, starting from a personal connection, Mehmet Yılmaz brings together Paul Cézanne, one of the most powerful figures in art history, and his own daughter Sezan on a conceptual plane. The artist blends the layers of meaning created by the words "sez" and "an" in the Turkish roots of the name "Sezan" with the aesthetic heritage of Cézanne, who is accepted as the father of modern art. This encounter is shaped not only through a similarity in names, but through the enduring traces of the concepts of "intuition" and "moment" in the art of painting.

According to the artist, this work is a timeless encounter between a great modern artist belonging to history and a postmodern artist. Yılmaz approaches processes in art history not as disconnected movements, but as a continuity that constantly transforms and nourishes one another. The viewer witnesses how the discipline of modernism and the libertarian and questioning language of contemporary art intertwine on the canvases.

Mehmet Yılmaz, also known for his academic identity, transforms theoretical depth into a visual feast in his paintings. The traces of the ten books he has written on modern and postmodern art and his academic studies materialize in the compositions in this exhibition. Emphasizing the contemporary artist's inevitable bond with tradition, the artist states, "We arrived at the contemporary art scene through the very path opened by modern art."

Prof. Dr. Mehmet Yılmaz, who continues his art and book studies in Ankara, can be visited with this striking exhibition in Galeri Soyut Hall B and C until May 9.