Özgür Ülker

Özgür Ülker is an Istanbul-based photographic artist exploring time, memory, sacredness and witnessing. He uses photography not simply to fix an instant, but to make duration perceptible.

In the ongoing Bosphorus series, movement itself is the subject. Working from a moving boat at sunset, Ülker gathers an unfolding process into a single frame. Sea, seagulls, light and colour are the surfaces through which movement appears—sometimes as continuous, linear traces, sometimes as turbulence and foam. The photographs hold these opposing forms of order and instability within the same field.

A graduate of Marmara University’s Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Photography, Ülker has also worked in advertising and stage photography since 2002. He has taught photography at university, led workshops and seminars for more than a decade, and worked as an art consultant and creative director. Philosophy, music, poetry and sacred texts inform his visual language.

Marmara University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Photography

Saatchi Art — digital exhibition curated by Bukunmi Grace; Bosphorus 10, 13 and 14 selected.
Italian Cultural Institute, Istanbul — selected digital group presentation.