Leyla Gediz

Leyla Gediz utilizes painting as a form of thinking; examining its place in our daily lives. Playing with form and materiality, her experiments in painting and installation are inspired by her own memories and experiences of growing up and living in Istanbul. Her different ways of looking at/ through the medium allows Gediz to question and interpret changes in her personal and social maps. In her recent works, the artist has been focusing on painting as a front for Turkey’s much interrupted modernity in an attempt to critique popular perceptions of painting, of individuality and of women without falling into cliché or nostalgia.

Leyla Gediz, born 1974, is a Turkish artist based in Istanbul and a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Arts (BA) and Goldsmiths College (MA) in London. Selected solo exhibitions include Kilimli Konak at Topağacı Ihlamur Yolu in Istanbul (2014), Reverb at Kulüp Külah in Istanbul (2012) and Under Construction at Kulüp Külah in Istanbul (2010). Selected group shows include Summer Resort for a Song at Depo in Istanbul (2014), Skeptical Thoughts on Love at Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2014), Dream and Reality at Istanbul Museum of Modern Art (2011), Istanbul / TR and Confessions of Dangerous Minds at the Phillips De Pury & Company Rooms, Saatchi Gallery in London (2011). She has curated several exhibitions and projects in Istanbul (2007-2014) and attended the HIAP Helsinki artist-in-residence program in 2010.