İsmet Doğan Click for Artist Information

İsmet Doğan

İsmet Doğan (1957 - )

İsmet Doğan was born in Adıyaman in 1957. He graduated from Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts in 1983. Then, he went to Paris with a French Government scholarship; He stayed here for two years. He returned to Turkey in the 1990s and settled in Istanbul.

In the 80s, İsmet Doğan problematized his works by combining Dadaism, collage, ready-made, montage and graffiti techniques, and the concepts of history, culture and tradition. As a thinker, he focused on the dimensions of violence and trauma in Turkish history, especially those imposed and appropriated by the westernization-modernization project.

In the 2000s, he added another critical dimension to his works, focusing especially on the issue of colonialism and approaching the subject with a strategy in terms of cinematographic material changes with references to art history. In the same period, mirrors became one of the main roles for Doğan as a working material. His recent works construct a hybrid technique and narrative. The artist produces his works in different disciplines of contemporary art such as photography, painting, sculpture, video and installation. The main problematics of his works in these different fields generally consist of identity, culture, body and power. He continues his life and work in Istanbul.