Pilot is pleased to present Can’t Come, Still Emerging, the second solo exhibition by Melih Çebi, on view from April 26 to June 4, 2025.
Çebi’s new exhibition reflects both his personal and artistic transformation. Centered around themes of modern isolation, existence, and the constantly shifting nature of identity, the exhibition offers a visual narrative of the artist’s inner journey.
Following his first solo show, Baby on Board, where he sought to find a place within the art world, Çebi now questions what it means to exist within that space. The title Can’t Come, Still Emerging captures a state of transition in both his practice and personal life. It refers both to the experience of an emerging artist still searching for grounding, and to a deeper personal passage from childhood and adolescence into the uncertainties of adulthood. This sense of being “in between” is at the heart of the exhibition, embodied in the phrase “still emerging.” Through images that move between past, present, and future, the exhibition becomes a visual expression of temporal transition.
The works feature dreamlike, timeless scenes that drift along the blurred edges of memory and imagination. Figures in the compositions revolve around themes such as solitude, introspection, and the search for identity. The smiling faces—frequent in his earlier series—are now replaced by more simplified, even expressionless faces. Çebi structures his works like film negatives, each one evoking a quiet hour of the night, an abandoned childhood park, or an identity slowly dissolving under the light of digital screens.
Among the symbols in the exhibition, the recurring image of a key holds a special connection to the artist’s childhood memories. Once drawn without understanding its meaning, the key has become a symbol of subconscious discovery over time. At the end of this personal journey, Çebi physically passes some of these keys to close friends, asking them to pass them on to others when the time comes—a gesture that mirrors the spirit of the exhibition: everything flows from one moment to another, from one consciousness to the next; nothing remains fixed forever.
Can’t Come, Still Emerging places themes of pause, transition, and individual disconnection at its core. While tracing the artist’s inner path, it also offers viewers a space for reflection—inviting them not only to look but to confront their own experiences. The exhibition presents a deeply personal yet collectively resonant encounter.
Press release from Pilot
Image: Melih Çebi. Grandfather’s Collection of Keys. 2025. Image courtesy of the artist
