Immediate Media Release
The Light Millennium
http://www.lightmillennium.org
Date: March 24, 2012 - INVITE

Turkish Painter Mehmet Arpacik
Will Make His U.S. Debut

The College of Arts and Letters at the Stevens Institute of Technology, The Consulate General of the Republic of Turkey in New York, and The Light Millennium jointly present an exhibition of paintings by the internationally recognized Turkish naïve artist, Mehmet Arpacik. In his oil paintings, Arpacik has been illustrating a harmonious relationship between humans and their environment for nearly half a century. The upcoming exhibition will mark the artist’s U.S. debut, with Arpacik himself present at the opening. The exhibition will open at Samuel G. Williams Library, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 (6:30p.m.), and will remain on view until May 9, 2012.

Sponsored by Turkish Airlines, the first solo exhibition of Arpacik’s works in the United States, at the same time, will be a "prelude" to the conference on the environmentalist George Perkins Marsh at Stevens, on May 4 and 5, 2012.

Mehmet Arpacik was born in 1936 in Bartin’s Arpacik village. After finishing the grade school two villages away, he couldn’t find the opportunity to continue school. He migrated to Istanbul when he was 15. There, he saw a painting for the first time on a street exhibition at the end of the 1960s. He attended workshops and classes as much as he could. Later on, he preferred to work independently within his own understanding of art.

Mehmet Arpacik’s first paintings were of Anatolian fields of poppy, tobacco, and corn, and later, tea fields in the Black Sea district. Memories of the rich, colorful landscapes of the region, images of people interacting with nature, and workers in the sun harvesting cotton were imprinted on his mind and they emerged in his paintings. For the last twenty years, his subject has been Istanbul.

Late critic and painter Faruk Aksoy pointed out that, as a “naïve” artist, Arpacik has “not lost his childish sensitivity.” Aksoy remarked: “His works, using mostly light and medium toned colors in large spaces, creating a sense of peace, awakening joy at times, share an idiosyncratic expression, and cause a sense of optimism and contentment, as if providing the viewer a kind of rehabilitation.

Mehmet Arpacik’s paintings have a distinctive quality of creating a sense of adventure between what’s seen and felt. The viewer may find himself captured in daydreams, going after his own adventure.

Arpacik’s work has garnered national and international praise and is included in private collections as well as in museums and galleries.

For interview inquires with the artist or image of the paintings or for more information, please e-mail to: Event@lightmillennium.org or dpagan@stevens.edu

Direction: http://www.stevens.edu/sit/maps/driving_directions.cfm

The Paintings of Mehmet Arpacik by Fahir AKSOY
INVITE for the Opening of the Exhibition