Merve Çanakçı's main drive in creating her art comes from the human psyche. Coping with fears, struggling with decision-making, resistance to change, and limiting past beliefs resonate on the materials she chooses to use. Most commonly, she applies painting, sewing, drawing, etching, cutting, and collage on misprinted fabrics. She sees these fabrics as scattered pieces belonging to a different existence.
The stories and beings that are not worth telling in this world are integrated with the patterns, stains, and production faults on the fabrics. The combination of texture and structure, defects and stains on the fabric creates images that provide new dimensions for her storytelling; a new dimension in which the subjects within her work are allowed to express themselves freely with all of their flaws.
Merve Çanakçı was born in 1982 in Ordu, Türkiye. She earned her BFA in painting at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istanbul. She attended tapestry classes between 2002-2004 and practiced printing at Borusan Cultural Center.
Selected group and solo exhibitions include; “Megabytes Uploaded to the Cloud”, .artSümer, Istanbul, (2023); “Brain Fog”, .artSümer, Istanbul, (2022); "Love Songs", Hopscotch Reading Room, Berlin, (2022); "Garten der neuen Welt: Was bin ich?", 48 Stunden Neukölln Festival, Kammer, Berlin, (2022); "Threshold" (solo), .artSümer, Istanbul, (2020); "Bank / Blank", Alte Sparkasse, Berlin, (2018), "A Room of Our Own", Ark Culture, Istanbul, 2017, “Stay With Me”, Salon für Kunstbuch at the 21er Haus – Museum of Contemporary Art, Viyana, (2016); “Stay With Me”, WOW Venue beim Kunstraum MOM, Hamburg, (2016); “Stay With Me”, DE KIJKDOOS, Amsterdam, (2016); “Stay With Me”, Weserburg-Museum für Moderne Kunst, Bremen, (2015); "Paper Cut" (solo), .artSümer, Istanbul, (2015); “Stay With Me”, Depo, Istanbul, (2015); "Stay with Me", Apartment Project, Berlin, (2014), "That Mood" (solo), .artSümer, Istanbul, (2012); "Point Zero", .artSümer, Istanbul, (2011); “Destroy Istanbul”, Galerie Neurotitan, Berlin, (2011); "Broken: Not Be Scattered But Expanded", .artSümer, Istanbul, (2010) and "A Dream… But Not Yours", National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C., (2010) among others.
Selected performances include; "Don’tswallowtheblackhole”, Syria Passage, Istanbul, (2009), and “Blead-Leg”, Galata Perform, Istanbul, (2008).
The artist lives and works in Berlin.
