Leyla Cansız was born in 1958 in Bayburt, northeastern Turkey. At the age of six she moved with her
Family in the now and then flourishing artistic and creative quarter "Beyoğlu" in Istanbul - the former
Heart of Byzantine Pera.

 

 

In 1972 Leyla Cansiz moved with her family to Germany as a teenager. Even as a student and adolescent, she designed the interior of the local youth center at the age of 16, among other things. Her early works consisted mainly of drawings and painting. After graduating from high school, Leyla Cansız was admitted to art school in Münster in 1976, but decided to spend more time with her young family and continue to work as an autodidact. She ran studios in Siegen and Emsland (painting and ceramics), sold to galleries in the region and also participated in her partner's antique trade.

 

Leyla Cansız mainly participated in arts and crafts markets with paintings, miniatures and ceramic art. In 1984 she opened the fashion and design studio "Lean Creation" in Lingen (Ems) until 1990. During this time she participated in art markets and fairs like the Kreativa in Dortmund, the offline in Hamburg and Berlin and other fairs in cities like Cologne and Essen.

 

In 1995 she became a member of the Meppen Art Circle ('Koppelschleuse') and took part in workshops and symposia on sculpture and ceramics and participated in solo and group exhibitions.

 

In 1998, she participated in a "Land Art Event" of the Kunstkreis and in this context created a forest figure out of leaves. In addition, she worked in the art circle with the Russian sculptors Roman Manevitch and Yuri Platon in sculpture and sculptural design together.

 

Leyla Cansiz exhibited on this occasion in the district of Emsland on various occasions, e.g. in the Meppen town hall (1999), for the reopening of the Gutsschänke Holsterfeld (1997), in the Meppen art circle (1995-2000) as well as in various private premises.

 

Since 1998 she has been involved in various projects as a designer in the textile production of the Turkish "Akkanat Holding". In the year 2000 she moved with her family back to the Münsterland and pursued her autodidactic activity there in her own studio of the artist community "Hawerkamp Münster" (1999 - 2005).

 

From 2001 she became a partner and managing director of "Mödden Glasgestaltung" GmbH in Haselünne / Emsland, which specialized in the production of tailor-made design concepts and art objects made of glass and stone. Many works of interior design, design and decoration e.g. on the yacht of the Jordanian King Abdullah II, in hotels and banks of the district wear their handwriting (including the castle Kampmann, Gödiker / Meppen, castle hotel / Haselünne, Märchenwald / Lingen, Sparkasse / Lingen, Berentzen brewery / Haselünne). Her work in glass design allowed her to creatively and innovatively combine sculpture, painting and glass design into something new. Works in the combinations stone-glass-light-painting and water emerged.

 

In 2003 Leyla Cansız exhibited some of these works in the branch library medicine of ULB Münster on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the library together with the artists Martin Mödden and Helmut Ebert.

 

In 2007, on behalf of the media and communications department of the Foreign Office in Berlin, sıe designed a "Media Prize" for the internal presentation to the embassies. In the same year the artist was commissioned by the regional council of Kaş / Antalya (Turkey) for the design and construction of a well and has been involved in various international art projects in Turkey since then, including the "Sonsuz Sükran Köyü" (Village of Eternal Gratitude) artist village project in the Konya region (www.sonsuzsukran.org).

 

Since 2007, she regularly exhibits in collective and solo exhibitions in the Antalya region (Kulturhaus Fethiye 2008 / Kulturhaus Kaş 2007 - 2013 / Kaş Marina 2012 -2013). In 2010 she designed the underwater landscape "Daughters of the Sea and the Sea" for the "Delta Beach Resort" in Bodrum.

 

In August 2011, she participated in the "Gratitude to Anatolia Encounters" in the "Sonsuz Sükran Köyü" (Village of Eternal Gratitude) and then at a sculpture symposium in the city of Çumra / Konya region in Turkey. She created there the sculpture of a Hittite Amfore with a magnitude of 2.10 meters.

 

Since 2011 some of her works can be seen in the traveling exhibition "Anadolu'ya Yolculuk" in different regions of Turkey (including Konya, Trabzon, Mersin and Ordu) and in March 2011 she exhibited in the Istanbul Art Gallery "Beşiktaş Cağdas" of the city administration of Istanbul / Besiktaş on the occasion of an event organized by the German-Turkish Foundation for Education and Scientific Research (TAVAK).

 

In 2012, Leyla Cansiz also advised Özbaşyapı in Turkey on construction projects and in 2013 participated in the Turkish film project "Aşk Ağlatır", for which you draw not only artistic advice but also the storyboard