Bio

Taner Paşamehmetoğlu is an award-winning multidisciplinary visual artist whose work blends storytelling, environmental urgency, and cultural identity. Rooted in both tradition and experimentation, his practice incorporates painting, photography, and mixed media —often using upcycled materials and natural elements—to examine themes of sustainability and consumerism.

A second-generation American born to parents from Turkiye who also both paint, Paşamehmetoğlu’s creative life began early. Childhood was steeped in artistic expression—drawing, painting, and photography were regular activities in the home. His love of photography, in particular, deepened during family trips to Türkiye, where he used a shared family camera to capture landscapes, people, and moments that helped him forge a personal connection to his heritage. Those early experiences laid the foundation for a lifelong commitment to storytelling through visual means.

Paşamehmetoğlu earned his undergraduate degree in Strategic Communication from the University of Utah, where he honed his documentary instincts as a photojournalist and Photo Editor for the Daily Utah Chronicle. This period also marked the beginning of his professional work in photography. From 2013 to 2019, he served as a photography resident with Major League Soccer’s Real Salt Lake, where he evolved from an unpaid intern. Over seven seasons, he refined a narrative-driven photographic style that captured the raw emotion of athletes in motion and was widely used in marketing materials and by the players themselves.

In addition to his work in sports media, Paşamehmetoğlu developed a parallel career in creative advertising, contributing to high-profile campaigns for Fortune 500 clients such as Microsoft and Subway Restaurants. He also brought his storytelling abilities to cause-marketing initiatives for the Utah Division of Highway Safety and the Utah Division of Natural Resources. His work on the 2018 “Shattered Lives Tree”—a sculpture made from broken alcohol bottles and car parts—received regional recognition from the American Advertising Federation for its poignant message on the dangers of drinking and driving. Projects like this underscored his growing awareness of the power of art.

Despite his success in commercial environments, Paşamehmetoğlu began to feel a growing tension between his values and the consumerist nature of the industry he was working in. He began dedicating evenings and weekends to his own creative practice, treating his studio as a space to interrogate the systems he once helped promote. His work became increasingly personal, drawing from his experiences as a Turkish-American navigating cultural hybridity and reflecting on questions of purpose, belonging, and identity. These inquiries naturally led him to the broader concept of the “American Dream”—its promises, its failures, and its environmental costs.

Relocating to California in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Paşamehmetoğlu found renewed inspiration in the natural world. Settling in Sacramento, he began experimenting more intentionally with environmentally-conscious processes: using salvaged wood, broken electronics, and repurposed packaging as canvases or sculptural components, and even inviting natural forces like wind, rain, and heat to shape the outcome of his pieces. This approach helped blur the line between artist and environment, process and product.

In 2023, he was selected for a one-year artist residency with the City of Sacramento’s Office of Climate Action and Sustainability. Through this residency, Paşamehmetoğlu used his art practice to engage communities in conversations about climate change, particularly the impacts of extreme heat in disinvested neighborhoods. The culminating project of this residency, titled Make Your Mark, invited over 100 residents from across Sacramento to participate in a collaborative abstract expressionist mural. By democratizing the creative process, the work helped participants explore artistic expression as a tool for civic engagement and learn more about climate change. Make Your Mark now hangs at the Joe Mims, Jr. Hagginwood Community Center as part of the City’s Art in Public Places Collection.

Paşamehmetoğlu’s fine art practice has been steadily gaining recognition. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions across California, including the 2023 Axis Gallery National Juried Exhibition and the 2023 Magnum Opus Juried Exhibition at Sacramento Fine Arts Center, where he won second place. His painting The American Dream was recently featured in a lesson plan for the Advanced Painting: Reconsidering the Portrait and Figure course at the University of California, Berkeley, introducing his exploration of cultural identity into academic discourse.

Today, Paşamehmetoğlu continues his practice from his home studio in Sacramento. He is a member artist at Axis Gallery and Atrium 916. Whether working solo in his studio, co-creating with nature, or engaging community members through participatory art, Paşamehmetoğlu remains driven by a desire to make work that sparks conversation and invites reflection—on who we are, what we consume, and the world we hope to leave behind.

CV/Resume

 Solo Exhibitions

• January 2025-March 2025, Featured Artist, Fort Sutter Hotel, Sacramento, CA

Duo Exhibitions

• June-July 2024, "Chasing the Raft of the Medusa", Chico Arts Center, Chico, CA

Group Exhibitions

• September 2024, Politically Charged, Blue Line Arts, Roseville, CA

• May 2024, Pure Imagination, The Mills Station Arts & Culture Center, Rancho Cordova, CA

• September 2023, Abstract Makes the City, The Gallery 916, Sacramento, CA

• August 2023, In Limbo - 18th National Juried Exhibition, Axis Gallery, Sacramento, CA

• May 2023, Abstractly Speaking - Juried Group Show, Elk Grove Fine Arts Center, Elk Grove, CA 

• February 2023, Magnum Opus - Juried Group Show, Sacramento Fine Arts Center, Sacramento, CA

• January 2023, "Climate Changing", Las Lagunas Art Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA

Residencies

• Sep 2023-June 2024, Capitol Region Creative Corps - The Office of Climate Action and Sustainability, Sacramento, CA

• 2013-2019, Real Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, UT

Special Projects

• Live painter for Midtown Association during Second Saturday's in Midtown Sacramento, July-October 2023, 2024

• Commissioned to create logo and branding elements for "Bread Riot Bakehouse", a local bakery in Salt Lake City, UT 2016

• Commissioned to create logo for "Pepper Jo Farms", a local farm in Delta, CO 2023

Collections

• City of Sacramento, Art in Public Places Collection, Sacramento, CA, "Make Your Mark", 2024

• Works held in private collections across the United States with some collectors acquiring multiple pieces

Awards & Honors

• "The American Dream" featured in lectures and exercises by Professor Chris Christion, Art History Professor/Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 2024

• Audience Award Selection, "The American Dream", Blue Line Arts, Politically Charged, Roseville, CA, 2024

• Second Place, "Photosyntehsis", Sacramento Fine Arts Center, Magnum Opus Juried Group Show, Sacramento, CA, 2023

• Silver Addy Award, "Shattered Lives Tree" The American Advertising Federation - Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 2018

• Region 9 Mark of Excellence Awards - Third Place for Feature Photography, Society of Professional Journalists, Salt Lake City, UT, 2011