Kazım Şimşek
About
Kazım Şimşek (1987, Ankara) started his master’s education at Hacettepe University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Painting Department in 2016, completed his master’s degree in 2019 by writing her thesis titled “How Artworks Represent Social Classes”. Kazım Şimşek does not hesitate to present us the fragile moments he chooses from the lives he enters without caring about privacy - and these lives and moments are almost always based on facts. He loses his distance as a storyteller, often becoming the subject of the story. He even goes a little further and adopts a very insistent attitude that we become the story itself, defeating the witness status he offers us. This decision of the painter makes visible his courage and endeavour to transform us - everyone
who looks at the painting - into the protagonist of the story. The scenes that Şimşek sets up are actually a "final scene". The people, objects and even
"events" placed in the right centre of the composition point to the moment just before the curtain closes. His paintings are a cross-section of the desperation shared by the viewer, the painter and the individuals who have turned into a thousand and one broken pieces of society. At the same time,
it is completely human; it asks us to listen to a ticking coming from the heart: Are we resisting life or death by living? The artist continues to live and produce in Ankara.
Education
2019, Department of Painting, Master Degree in Art, Hacettepe University
2012, Department of Painting (BA), Hacettepe University
2006-2007, Department of Sculpture (BA), Hacettepe University
Solo Exhibitions
2024, Direnç, KAIROS Gallery, İstanbul
2022, Moral, Evliyagil Dolapdere, İstanbul
Fairs
2024, 9th Artweeks, Gallery KAIROS, İstanbul
2024, Artshow, Gallery KAIROS, İstanbul
2023, 8th Artweeks Akaretler, Gallery KAIROS, İstanbul
2023, 18th Contemporary Istanbul, Gallery KAIROS, İstabul
2023, Contemporary Istanbul Bloom, Gallery KAIROS, İstanbul
Institution and Museum Exhibitions
2021, The Wizard and The Garden, Erimtan Arkeoloji ve Sanat Müzesi, Ankara
2020, Camdan Şato, Müze Evliyagil, Ankara
2018, Sarsılan İmge, Pera Müzesi, İstanbul
2017, Aynı Bahçe, Müze Evliyagil, Ankara
Group Exhibitions
2025, Korbut Flip, Gallery Kairos, İstanbul
2024, The Century of Pera, Prologue:The Lost Time, Gallery KAIROS, İstanbul
2024, 3, Gallery KAIROS, İstanbul
2024, New Lands, Arkas Sanat Alaçatı, İzmir
2022, Reimage:Morning After Dark, Gallery KAIROS, İstanbul
2019, Kâğıt, Pilevneli Project, İstanbul
2013, Olduğumuz Gibi, Galeri Zilberman İstanbul
2012, Gerçeklik Terörü, Tütün Deposu, İstanbul
Awards - Talks - Projects
2020, Mamut Art Project, İstanbul
