"Glance" Painting

Meltem Karakuyu (1986, Turkey) is an award-winning contemporary artist living and working in the Netherlands. Her practice unfolds through processes of movement, displacement, and transformation, shaped by her transnational trajectory from Turkey to Prague and, most recently, to the Netherlands. She began her academic career in Turkey as a Research Assistant in the Fine Arts Education Department at Uludağ University in 2009 and was awarded the title of Associate Professor in 2019. She holds a PhD in art, and her academic background continues to inform both the conceptual depth and methodological framework of her artistic practice. Alongside her studio work, she leads private lessons and workshops for young artists, maintaining a strong commitment to education and knowledge-sharing. Karakuyu’s work engages deeply with the urban environment as both a physical and conceptual construct. Her visual language reflects the accumulation, fragmentation, and transformation of urban memory, tracing how histories overlap, erode, and are continuously reconstructed. These processes are expressed through layered compositions of lines and forms, reminiscent of the way new civilizations are built upon the remnants of previous ones—creating surfaces that function as living archives of time. While her earlier works emphasized abstraction through linear and structural compositions, her recent practice introduces the human body—particularly the female body—as a central element. This shift marks a transition from line to paint, where the body becomes a site for exploring identity, visibility, and agency within contemporary and posthuman conditions. In her paintings, the female figure emerges as both resilient and transformative. Addressing the persistent questioning of the female body’s place within social structures, Karakuyu explores themes of concealment, visibility, and self-reclamation. The instinct to hide, historically imposed on women, becomes a starting point for reconfiguring the body as active, present, and empowered. Through this transformation, the body evolves from a mechanical and anonymous entity within posthuman discourse into an organic, living form. Nature plays a crucial role in this process, intertwining with the female figure as a symbol of growth, regeneration, and resistance.