Exodus: A Sculpture Exhibition by Mehmet Ayanoglu

Thursday, May 4 - Sunday, May 21, 2006
Gallery hours: 11:00 am - 7:00 pm daily
Reception: Thursday, May 4, 2006 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

The Gallery at The Marmara-Manhattan
301 East 94th Street
(at Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10128

Free admission

“Mehmet Ayanoglu’s larger-than-life aluminum wire sculptures, which possess a delicate and fragile nature due to their transparency, seem to be frozen in a moment of desperation that conveys both pain and rebellion experienced by humankind in the modern world. The artist’s embrace of wire sculpture grew out of his unflinching fascination in line as a fundamental element of painting. Recently, he embarked on three-dimensional work with the urge to reach beyond the confining boundaries of canvas; yet the emphasis on line remained as he discovered wire had the potential to substitute the lines in his drawings. Thus pens and brushes became wires, and paintings shifted to sculpture. His early works, which predominantly include geometric motifs, evolved into massive forms of aluminum and culminated in wire-contoured human figures. Ayanoglu’s figures speak to the essence of those who know there is always struggle and agony that must be transcended in order to deal with the challenges of day-to-day living”.

Zeynep Rona, Art Historian

Our special thanks to Mine Özpinar, Zishan Ugurlu, and Gülçe Agirkaya. The Gallery at The Marmara-Manhattan; Lisa Baumann, and Emre Baykal.