CANAN, whose artistic practice comprises painting, photography, miniature, video, performance and installation, is an artist who has been making art since the late 90s with feminist discourse.
In her works, she uses a variety of materials and media to tell stories, which incorporate the concept of power, gender policies, and the dominance of these policies over women from a critical viewpoint. She highlights the pressure that traditional attitudes and practices place on society, particularly on women. As a result, the not-to-be-ignored critique of gender stereotypes fed by the collective subconscious becomes the subject matter in her works.
CANAN's artworks tell stories nourished by motifs blending written and oral history and stemming from own experiences. These personal and collective tales collide with the artist's unique expression where every new production brings with it new practical discoveries, and opens room for new challenges in the artist's creative repertory. In her boundless understanding of materials including her own body, she uses "ingredients" based on the nature of the art she creates.
In her latest works, CANAN explores the influence of symbols on human behavior and relationships: She focuses on the different cognitive, intuitive and imaginative effects of images, that are fostered by nature and gain significance, thus turning into symbols. These images can be frightening at times and be the definition of beauty at other times. Symbols are the timeless and placeless common language of our everyday interactions with one another and with history, marking our daily lives with the influence of the evolutionary process and the collective unconscious. Be it in “high art”, on our personal items in everyday life, in emojis on our phones, in politics, or throughout the history of humanity and art, the usage of symbols has diverse meanings at different times.
By layering symbols, materials, sound, myths and tales with a contemporary artistic view, CANAN goes beyond the ordinary where memory is concerned. She keeps on producing artworks that center on the intuitive, emotional or intellectual purification of the human soul.
CANAN (b.1970, İstanbul) completed her BFA at Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts, Painting Department in Istanbul in 1998.
Her work was included in group shows in international institutions such as Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Interkulturelt Musseum Oslo; Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai; MAK Museum Vienna; Brooklyn Museum, New York; The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington; Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris; and Mucem, Marseille as well as in Turkey, including Odunpazarı Modern Museum in Eskişehir and Istanbul Modern, Arter, Pera Museum, and SALT in Istanbul.
She participated in local and international biennials including; “An Imaginary Civilization”, Kommagene Biennial, (Curator: Nihat Özdal), Adıyaman, TR (2022); "Beyond Words”, 4. Mardin Biennial, (Curator: Fırat Arapoğlu), Mardin, TR (2018); “Beyond Bliss”, 1. Bangkok Biennial, (Curator: Apinan Poshyananda), Bangkok Thailand (2018); “On the Shoulders of the Giant”, Industrial Art Biennial, Labin Croatia (2018); “What Keeps Mankind Alive?”, 11. İstanbul Biennial, (Curator: WHW), İstanbul TR (2009); “Free Kick”, 9. İstanbul Biennial Hospitality Zone (Curator: Halil Altındere), İstanbul TR (2005) and “The Passions”, 1.Valencia Biennial, Spain (2001).
