Mehmet Aksoy returns with new Istanbul show

An exhibition presenting recent works by the acclaimed sculptor Mehmet Aksoy will be shown at Istanbul's Anna Laudel Contemporary through April 20. 

The exhibition, "Esoteric Illusions in the Wind of the Hammer," marks the return of Aksoy's unique aesthetic after five years of seclusion.

The show can be regarded as a program highlight for Anna Laudel Contemporary, which opened recently in the old finance district of the late Ottoman Empire in Karaköy, within a historic building comprising a vast exhibition space spanning five floors.

An artist at the height of his career, Aksoy is considered one of the most creative and inventive sculptors working in Turkey or elsewhere borders. His unique public realm sculpture projects are displayed in cities across Europe, with a particular prevalence in Berlin, Germany.

He is renowned also for the spiritual themes and content of his artworks, reflecting his individual sculptural imagination and metaphorical expressiveness. His works are mainly inspired by the world of shamanic rituals, spirits, mythology and nature. 

His main materials are stone and metal, although describing his work he states: "We are not carving stone, we care carving light." His works play with light, which interacts harmoniously with the sculptures to express shapes and forms.

Use of light 

"It's all about arranging and making a melody out of the light upon the mass and inside the space. As sculptors, we don't actually play with great big masses, rather we engage with light. The sculpture has light running through its veins instead of blood and that's exactly why it can take on different meanings in relation to the angle and intensity of light," Aksoy says of the use of light in...