Özmen Zümrüt – Space

She was born in Izmir, Turkey. She is a professor of painting and art history. Her first exhibition was held in 1981 at the Izmir Museum of Painting and Sculpture. In 1983, together with painter Fahir Aksoy, she founded the Original Art House and the Art Group. With this group, she exhibited throughout the Aegean region. She is a founder of the alumni association and worked on the scientific committee of the Izmir Art Biennial from 2013 to 2017. Besides teaching painting for fifteen years, she has practiced it for forty years, finding motifs and themes in the beauties of the Anatolian landscape and the contradictory urban life. She presented her first experiments with phosphorescent painting, which became her signature style, in a cycle inspired by “The Divine Comedy” in 1994. Her work is strongly influenced by tragic events and global catastrophes, yet through art she bridges boundaries, affirming it as a universal creative and connecting medium.