Residents

Cansu Sönmez

Istanbul, October 2026

Cansu Sönmez (b. 1991, Istanbul) is an artist who constructs her multidisciplinary practice through a critical and conceptual language. Her work draws attention through its exploration of the relationships between power, the city, humans, nature, and ecology. She employs hybrid methods in her production processes. While questioning the relationship between humans and nature with conceptual depth, her works invite the viewer into a sensory experience. By bringing together a wide range of media and practices—such as painting, sculpture, collage, ceramics, digital and kinetic installations, and artificial intelligence—she produces multilayered works. For a long time, Sönmez has engaged audiences with the tendency of the concepts of dystopia and utopia to transform into one another. In recent years, her artistic practice has centered on sustainability, ecology, and the scientific, architectural, and cultural impacts of plants. Investigating and forming connections with the geographical, cultural, and historical textures of the places she has lived in and experienced, the artist transforms these layers into an artistic language, aiming to create works that are specific to time and place. 

A graduate of Marmara University, Faculty of Fine Arts Education, Department of Painting Teaching, Sönmez completed her master’s degree in the Basic Art and Design program at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University with a thesis titled The Impact of Dystopia on Contemporary Art in the 21st Century. Since 2019, she has been represented by Pg Art Gallery. Her works have been presented to audiences at various biennials, fairs, and open-call exhibitions, including the Mardin Biennial (Invited), Mediterranean Biennial, Kommagene Biennial, bang.Prix, SONAR +D, and Contemporary Istanbul. Her works are included in numerous private collections. Living in Istanbul, Cansu Sönmez continues her artistic practice in her studio in Balat.