Meet With Mehmet Güreli’s Paintings For The Second Time
Güreli, who opened a surprise painting exhibition at the Milli Reasürans Art Gallery two years ago, will once again be in front of Istanbul art lovers between March 22 and April 15, 2000.
“Mehmet Güreli, who skips stones on the lake shore not with his mastery, but with the idle childishness of his own heart’s pleasure as usual… However, when you see his paintings that are generally similar to each other, you can never forget them… Perhaps because he does not feel the need to go to extreme lengths to surpass himself, you cannot forget them.” Ahmet Altan wrote this about Mehmet Güreli after his first exhibition at the Istanbul Milli Reasürans Art Gallery in March 1998.
Mehmet Güreli had appeared before art viewers as a surprise two years ago. Until that day, he had been known as a story writer, publisher, film director, musician, journalist, caricaturist, and bookstore founder. After his first exhibition at the Milli Reasürans Art Gallery, Güreli opened exhibitions in Ankara and İzmir. Two years later, he presented his works to Istanbul art lovers once again at the Milli Reasürans Art Gallery, accompanied by a book published with the contributions of Türk Henkel. His debut was surprising, as were his paintings. After the exhibition, the question “will there be a sequel?” was on everyone’s mind. In fact, Güreli had already given the answer to this question at the time when he explained his relationship with painting with Cézanne’s words, “Painting is not a profession but a destiny”; however, it was necessary to wait two years to be sure.
The artist says, “Since my first exhibition, painting has started to take up more and more of my time. I have given up on the bookstore. Painting is almost my only occupation. I have no complaints about this for now. But the reason I am working on painting so much is not to open more and more frequent exhibitions. I really enjoy and enjoy painting my paintings. But I do not think of people liking them while I am working. In other words, I am not talking about a simple understanding such as ‘if I do this and that, they will like it and I will sell my painting.’ When I am working, my painting and I are alone and we are living our own adventure. Thinking like ‘this painting will be in front of the audience, maybe it will be liked’ does not give me the motivation to paint. Being liked is a nice thing, but it is a result. It is a result that you do not know when and how it will come about. In this respect, I say that the paintings that emerge today are paintings ‘despite me’. In fact, they have found their own paths. Therefore, the right to speak falls to them more than to me.”
