Classroom & Locality Print

Fatih Sungurtekin started painting from his childhood by making mud toys and drawing pictures on the walls. His high school teacher discovered his talent and directed him towards the visual arts. His artistic life began when he entered the Painting and Drawing Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts in 1995. He has participated in many National and International exhibitions as a conceptual artist. With the concept of "Moment and Memory" at the university and later, he produced studies on "time, the destruction of urban heritage, the reduction of human dialogues, the change and erasure of social memory". His art in this process contains warnings, information and messages for the future. In these works, he applied installation, ready-made materials and mixed techniques on various materials such as walls, paper and canvas. Later, the artist diversified the concept of "Moment and Memory" by combining and expanding the concepts of time, space and memory, and focused on organizing and recording what we experience in our memory by abstracting it momentarily. In the same way, he produced snapshots that were abstracted by the superposition of momentary things. Making connections between his own memory and collective memory, the artist produced works that were manipulated on his canvas. The overlapping moments creating time and memory led him to produce more layered works. In recent years, the artist, making use of micro-macro cosmic elements, the forms and shapes of nature and living things, tries to reveal the invisible beauties of nature and the moment we live in, by producing layered works. The artist, who establishes similarities and relationships with things inside and outside of our body and thoughts, creates by blending the elements in his painting with the figure that has aesthetic expression. The work, which appears to be a single surface from a distance, turns into works that deepen in meaning with new visuals and sections as they approach. While each collage element supports the main image, it creates new meanings in itself and evokes different feelings in the viewer. The artist examines the relationship of being and absence based on the known and unknown in the context of time and perception. The paintings create awareness for the viewer in his inner and outer journey. Here's what he says about his artworks: Painting should take you on an inner, mental, universal, and perceptual journey.