Memory Instalation 2000 Print

Fatih Sungurtekin’s artistic journey began in childhood, shaping mud toys and drawing on walls. His talent was first discovered by his high school teacher, who encouraged him to pursue visual arts. In 1995, he entered the Faculty of Fine Arts, Painting Department, officially marking the start of his artistic career. Since then, he has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions as a conceptual artist. In the early years of his career, he focused on the concept of “Moment and Memory.” Over time, his work evolved around themes such as time, the destruction of urban heritage, the decline of human interactions, and the transformation and erasure of social memory. His art became both a means of warning and informing, as well as a narrative carrying messages for the future. During this process, he experimented with various surfaces such as walls, paper, and canvas, using installations, ready-made objects, and mixed techniques. In the following years, he expanded the “Moment and Memory” concept by exploring the relationship between time, space, and memory. Investigating how fleeting experiences are shaped and recorded in our minds, he created fragmented, layered works where moments overlapped and abstracted into visual compositions. By bridging his personal memory with collective memory, he manipulated his canvases to produce intricate, multi-layered compositions. These overlapping moments, blending time and memory, led him to develop increasingly complex works. In recent years, drawing inspiration from micro- and macrocosmic elements, as well as the forms and structures of nature and living beings, Sungurtekin has focused on unveiling the unseen beauty of nature and the fleeting moments of life through layered compositions. By establishing connections between internal and external elements—both within the body and the mind—he blends natural components with an aesthetic figurative approach. While his works appear as a unified whole from a distance, upon closer inspection, they reveal new visuals, details, and deeper layers of meaning. Each collage element reinforces the main composition while simultaneously generating independent interpretations, evoking different emotions in the viewer. Sungurtekin explores the relationship between presence and absence through the lens of time and perception, juxtaposing the known and the unknown. His paintings invite the viewer on an introspective and perceptual journey.