Djochkoun Sami

Djochkoun Sami (b. 1973, Bulgaria) lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey. He earned both his BFA and MFA from the Faculty of Painting at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, and his work has appeared in group exhibitions, illustrated magazines, poetry books, and theatre posters.

Sami’s paintings inhabit the threshold between expression and figuration, weaving architectural and historical echoes into the compositional discipline of formalist painting. Working with a restrained, earthy palette and a drawing-centred process, he builds surfaces where line and form are sharpened to clarity. Abandoned buildings from the recent past often serve as starting points—stripped of their original context and politics until they become anonymous, depoliticised spaces. Interplays of light and shadow lend these settings a quiet drama, while objects, stones, organic fragments, and voids share the same pictorial stage in a horizontally unfolding sense of time.

Memory—its power to resurface, distort, and take new form—is at the heart of his practice. His work is informed by an awareness of collective traumas: war, displacement, and the weight of totalitarian regimes, echoing certain undercurrents of European post-war painting. By engaging with fading ...

2011, MFA, Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Faculty of Painting, Istanbul
2004, BFA, Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Faculty of Painting, Istanbul

Solo Exhibitions
2024 - "In The End, There Is No End", Istanbul Concept Gallery, İstanbul, TR
2022 - "Slow Homecoming", Art Gallery Silistra, Silistra, BG
2022 - "Sumerki", Istanbul Concept Gallery, İstanbul, TR
2021 - "Inventory", Gallery Soyut, Ankara, TR
2015 - "Playing Backwards", The Other Art Fair solo booth, London, UK
2013 - "The Contract", Mabeyn Gallery, Istanbul, TR

Group Exhibitions
2026 - "Forms of Resilience", Platforms Project, Athens, GR
2026 - "Open Studio, Open Exhibition", Gallery Su, Ayvalık, TR
2026 - "Memory : Dialogue of Generations", Vefa High School, Istanbul, TR
2026 - "Sofia-Istanbul: Bridge of Art", Beyoglu Municipality Art Gallery, Istanbul, TR
2026 - "Mémoire : Dialogues au Fil des Âges", Lycée Français Saint-Michel, Istanbul, TR
2025 - "Sofia-Istanbul: Bridge of Art", Shipka 6, Sofia, BG
2025 - "Eyes Linger, Mind Follows", Belleville, Paris, FR
2025 - "The Luxembourg Effect", Rusi Karabiberov Art Gallery, Nova Zagora, BG
2025 - "Echo", Cağla Cabaoğlu Art Gallery, Istanbul, TR
2025 - "Resonance", Cağla Cabaoğlu Art Gallery, Istanbul, TR
2024 - "The Luxembourg Effect", Varna City Art Gallery, BG
2023 - "#HeyFreedom", Turkish Journalists Association Museum, Istanbul, TR
2023 - "HOME", The Department Sto...