Regimes of vision

Mutlu Aksu’s first solo exhibition Reality Show is on view at Galeri 77 from April 9 to May 23, 2026. The exhibition opens up a discussion on how the boundary between reality and representation becomes increasingly blurred within contemporary visual culture

Mutlu Aksu, Let The Good Times Roll, 2025, Acrylic on canvas, 110x155 cm

Mutlu Aksu’nun Reality Show başlıklı sergisi, 9 Nisan - 23 Mayıs 2026 tarihleri arasında Galeri 77’de gerçekleşiyor. Sanatçının ilk kişisel sergisi olan bu seçki, gündelik hayatın sıradan görünen anlarına odaklanıyor ancak bu sıradanlık, olduğu gibi bırakılmıyor. Tanıdık nesneler, bildik mekânlar ve kolayca tanınabilen figürler üzerinden kurulan sahneler, kısa sürede kendi güvenilirliğini kaybetmeye başlıyor.

Between reality and fiction

Left: Mutlu Aksu, Untitled, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 150x190 cm

Right: Mutlu Aksu, Pornhub, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 60x90 cm

The scenes in Aksu’s canvases initially construct a world that feels accessible, even overly familiar. Yet this familiarity does not offer a stable ground. On the contrary, upon closer attention, the image begins to slip within itself, at times fracture, revealing that what appears natural is in fact grounded in a dense construction. It is precisely here that the exhibition’s central question emerges: Is what we see truly “there,” or is it a representation constructed from beginning to end?

The “reality show” format is one of the exhibition’s direct points of departure. Claiming to present real people and their real lives, this structure already turns into a construct the moment the camera is set up. Aksu’s works extend this logic into everyday life. From the moment of reaching for a phone in the morning to the practice of editing an image before sharing it, this field produces a reality that is not only lived but also constantly arranged and displayed. For this reason, the exhibition looks not only at individual images, but at the visual order within which these images are produced. The blurring of the boundary between reality and representation emerges here as a field of inquiry in its own right.

Visibility, repetition, and representation

Left: Mutlu Aksu, Love Me the Most, 2026, Acrylic on canvas, 110x110 cm

Right: Mutlu Aksu, Love Me the Most II, 2026, Acrylic on canvas, 80x94 cm

Aksu’s practice engages directly with the structure of contemporary visual culture. In this sense, the exhibition also examines the workings of social media.

What becomes visible, what gains value, what enters circulation? All of these are shaped through specific visual norms. These norms do not operate as explicit impositions. Rather, they settle in through repetition. The same compositions, similar surfaces, familiar gestures and emotions… Over time, these begin to appear natural, even inevitable. It is precisely this seemingly natural order that Aksu’s works disrupt.

Despite all their familiarity, the figures in the paintings evoke a sense of being out of place. A body is frozen in an unexpected position, a gesture is overemphasized, a relationship is staged with an almost theatrical intensity. These scenes convey an impression that is at once familiar and absurd. The viewer, in turn, finds themselves within this contradiction: what appears is both possible and not. At this point, kitsch aesthetics become a decisive tool. Glossy surfaces, intense emotional cues, and easily legible images establish a space that quickly draws the viewer in. Yet this aesthetic is not left intact. On the contrary, it reveals itself through its excess. Emotion, rather than being conveyed directly, becomes artificial through exaggeration. This, in turn, unsettles the viewer’s trust in the image.

Aksu’s compositions often unfold in the middle of a narrative. Moments where a movement is interrupted, where an emotion freezes on the surface… This choice recalls the close-up aesthetics of television, the constructed nature of reality shows, and the attention-driven visual strategies of social media. Yet the artist does not adopt this language as it is; she works through it. By using the tools of spectacle, she makes visible how those very tools operate.

Repetition plays a central role here. The multiplication of figures, the rhythmic reiteration of patterns, and the similar structures of the compositions all point to the logic through which everyday life operates. Yet this repetition never remains seamless. There is always a slight deviation, a subtle difference that makes itself felt. This difference opens up a gap that disrupts the coherence of the system.

The tension of the surface

Left: Mutlu Aksu, Oh, How I Cried, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 70x80 cm

Right: Mutlu Aksu, Şükür, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 30x30 cm

In Aksu’s paintings, the constructed nature we have been discussing manifests not only in the content but also on the surface. The acrylic works on canvas are produced with a smooth, controlled, and layered understanding of surface. With the withdrawal of visible brushstrokes, this surface creates an almost digital effect.

This produces a marked contrast with the emotional intensity of the scenes. The more flawless the surface, the more visible the tension within the scene becomes. This contrast continuously suspends the viewer’s relationship to what is seen.

The use of color is also a key component of this structure. In the artist’s paintings, broad, flat fields of color sit side by side not through soft transitions but through sharp encounters. While dark, oppressive backgrounds enclose the scene, bright details emerge within this weight in a fragile manner. This relation constantly reminds us that the image is not natural, but constructed.

Aksu’s practice is concerned not only with what is represented, but with how representation is constructed. The smoothness of the surface, the precision of the compositions, and the rhythm of repetition together form a structure that makes visible how reality is produced.

What remains open

Left: Mutlu Aksu, However You Like, 2025, Acrylic on canvas, 100x190 cm

Right: Mutlu Aksu, I Picked Roses from the Rose Garden, 2025, Acrylic on polyester cast and cut-out wood, 45x34x25 cm

Reality Show does not offer the viewer a closed meaning. Instead, it constructs a framework that moves through the familiar and subtly displaces it.

What remains after the exhibition is not an answer, but a hesitation. Not about the image itself, but about how we look at it.

Does what we call the real still stand somewhere outside the image, or has it already dissolved within it?

Mutlu Aksu, Reality Show, Exhibition view, 2026, Galeri 77