Melike Kara
born 1985 in Bensberg, Germany.
Melike Kara's practice encompasses a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, and photography. She is known for addressing issues of displacement, marginalization, and exclusion, focusing on making unheard voices heard and empowered. Kara draws inspiration from Kurdish tapestries and uses them as a starting point for her gestural abstract paintings that reinterpret her own cultural heritage. Her process of adaptation shifts the narrative away from dominant stories of oppression and instead creates spaces to celebrate the beauty of everyday cultural life and its history, including traditions, festivals, and rituals of the Kurdish diaspora.
Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at MO.CO. Montpellier; SCHIRN Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen; Kunsthalle Zürich; Kunstverein Düsseldorf; Museum De Fundatie, Zwolle; Philara Foundation, Düsseldorf; Frac des pays de la Loire, Nantes; Mead Gallery | Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry; Neue Galerie Gladbeck; Ludwig Forum Aachen; Kölnischer Kunstverein; Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels; Kunstverein Göttingen; Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; Yuz Museum, Shanghai and Dortmunder Kunstverein. She participated in the 58th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, curated by Sohrab Mohebbi.
Gallery exhibitions
Institutional exhibitions
Press
Vita
Lives and works in Cologne Born 1985 in Bensberg, Germany
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024 Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation, Aachen chanting, Jan Kaps, Cologne shallow lakes, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
2023 changing light, nw9, Cologne Emine's Garden, Kunst Halle St. Gallen tij, Parcours Art Basel
2022 as above so below, Arcadia Missa, London landing softly, Neue Galerie Gladbeck
2021 Nothing Is Yours, Everything Is You, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne How she shapes us, LC Queisser, Tbilisi, Georgia
2020 dayë dayê, B.LA Art Foundation, Vienna Zonta Art Award, Kunstraum Fuhrwerkswaage, Sürth where we meet, Jan Kaps, Cologne No Friends but the Mountains, Kunstverein Göttingen
2019 Gowend Garden, Salon 94, New York My Beloved Wild Valley, Arcadia Missa, London new work, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
2018 Speaking in Tongues, Jan Kaps, Cologne A Taste of Parsley, Yuz Museum, Shanghai
2017 Köpek, Peres Projects, Berlin
2016 Honey: Bread & Butter (with Jessica Gispert), Komplot, Brussels In Your Presence, Peres Projects, Berlin
2015 Lunch, Salon Kennedy, Frankfurt a. M. Flying Dinner, Open Forum, Berlin
2014 Real Sorbet, Ortlo, Leipzig
2013 Das kleine Schwarze, Boutique, Cologne
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Being Mediterranean, MO.CO., Montpellier Identities, Rothschild & Co Bank AG, Zürich Healing the Earth, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Neuerwerbungen und Schenkungen, Kunst Museum St. Gallen Black Box Theater, Clearing, New York
2023 My Oma, Kunstinstitut Melly, Rotterdam Brave New World: 20 Painters for the 21st Century, Museum De Fundatie, Zwolle I've only got eyes for you, Philara Foundation, Dusseldorf Monotypes, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich Calling, Kunstverein Düsseldorf, Dusseldorf The Reason for Painting, Mead Gallery, Coventry Tsinamdzgvrishvili 49 / Mazniashvili 10, LC Queisser, Tiflis the the yellow light at 6pm - Remembering. envisioning, sensing landscape, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin Next Door, Yuz Project Space of Art, Shanghai
2022 Is it morning for you yet?, 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh Trilogie de cendres (v.3), Frac des pays de la Loire, Nantes Visions or Waking Dreams, Kunstverein Friedrichshafen, Friedrichshafen Traverser les silences, Editions Dilecta, Paris
2021 Sweet Lies. Fiktionen der Zugehörigkeit, Ludwig Forum Aachen, Aachen The Dreamers, 58th October Salon, Belgrade Biennial, Belgrade Incorporea 04, CURA., Basement Roma, Rome
2020 Risquons-Tout, Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels love your symptom, but not too much, blank projects, Cape Town
2019 Solar Anus, Parisian Laundry, Montreal
2018 BAMBOO BAR, AT THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE, Dortmunder Kunstverein, Dortmund The Same As Ever, But More So (curated by Miriam Bettin), Braunsfelder, Cologne Inaugural Show, LC QUEISSER, Tbilisi Nothing Will Be The Same As Before, Tanya Leighton, Berlin
2017 (X) A Fantasy, curated by Sandra Pusterhofer, David Roberts Art Foundation, London MIDTOWN, Salon 94 and Maccarone Gallery, Lever House, New York White Columns Benefit Exhibition and Auction, White Columns, New York Monday is a Day Between Sunday and Tuesday, curated by Lisa Offermann, Tanya Leighton, Berlin
2016 Melike Kara, Talisa Lallai, Lindsay Lawson, curated by Maria Chiara Valacchi, Studiolo, Milan Wild Style: Exhibition of Figurative Art, Peres Projects, Berlin In Wonderland, Salon Dahlmann, Berlin FACE TO FACE, curated by Eugenio Viola, Palazzo Fruscione, Salerno SURRREAL, König Gallery, Berlin Folly, Emalin, Dunmore Pineapple, Airth, Falkirk The Snoring Princess, Kunstgruppe, Cologne Lanzarote, Union Pacific, London
2015 copy g_ods (with Yves Scherer & Julia Scher), Drei, Cologne The State of Having Left, curated by Lisa Offermann and Pauline Seguin, Leipzig
2014 kunst lmage, Pourya, Düsseldorf NOWHERE, Bar Babette, Berlin L'Aventura, A+B Contemporary Art, Brescia Ifinito, Kunstverein Essen, Totale, Essen Shortcuts, Hallmackenreuther, Cologne
2013 Body Light, Venus & Apollo by Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf Dark(traces), Hamburger Filmfestival, Hamburg Fragile Islands, Parkhaus, Düsseldorf Zyklus, Studio Roh, Düsseldorf Bal Aksin, Maybachpoint, Cologne Ein drittel weiß hören, KIT, Düsseldorf Der stille Grund, Gagarin, Düsseldorf Here is always somewhere else, Castle Oud Rekem, Rekem