Gözde İlkin works on found domestic fabrics such as tablecloths, curtains, and bed sheets that represent social identity, social processes and which function as objects of memory. Her motifs and drawings on fabrics explore contemporary cultural information, political and social relationships, and gender issues.
Using first-hand fabrics and motifs as materials, İlkin brings forth different memories of lives in daily use; and asks basic questions about a sense of belonging, the movements of identity, and rootedness. Her embroidered and painted forms focus on the body as an experimental or affective landscape. The conceptual nodes of her work include the transference of knowledge through objects and expressions, and the shaping of individuals through a disciplinary practice of the body. She prefers to use abstract forms, like roots, to depict the body and its experiences of its habitat. By erasing facial features, she unites all beings—plants, animals, and humans—into a shared narrative. These abstract forms evoke roots, rhizomes, figures, and landscapes, blending them into a cohesive visual language.
Recently, Ilkin has begun designing fabrics as stages for inhabitation by incorporating drawing, stitching, and sound. Sound, visual material, and text form the core elements of her work. While designing her forms, she thinks about experiences, movement, and affect, concepts based on multi-disciplinary coexistence.
By tracing nature to discover ways of belonging, İlkin’s forms take inspiration from nature and they investigate the healing and transformative aspects of plants, animals, and humans when drawn closer together.
Gözde İlkin (b. 1981, Kütahya, Turkey) completed her undergraduate degree at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University painting department in 2004 and her graduate degree at Marmara Fine Arts Faculty painting department in 2012. Ilkin lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey.
Selected solo exhibitions include Invisible Bonds, Companion Roots, Curated by Joana P.R. Neves, PARIS-B, Paris (2023); The Eye of the Earth, The Mouth of the Ground, Gypsum Gallery, Cairo (2022); Entrusted Ground Curated by Duygu Demir, .artSümer Gallery, Istanbul (2022); MAC VAL Garden: As the roots spoke, the cracks deepen, as part of the exhibition of the collection Persona grata? Curated by Alexia Fabre, MAC/VAL Museum, Paris, FR.
Group shows include Les voix des fleuves, Crossing the water, the 17th edition of the Lyon Biennale, Artistic director Isabelle Bertolotti, Guest curator Alexia Fabre, Lyon FR (2024); Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana, Director Hedwig Fijen, Second Creative Mediator of Manifesta 15 Filipa Oliveira, Barcelona (2024); In Real Time, NYUAD Art Gallery, Curated by Maya Allison and Duygu Demir, Abu Dhabi (2024); Venedigsche Sterne Curated by Susann Wintsch and Stephan Kunz, Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur, Switzerland (2022); Rooted Beings Curated by Barbara Rodriguez Munoz, Wellcome Collection, London (2022); It's Just a Phase Curated by Rhea Dall and Elmgreen & Dragset by Ingar Dragset, Kjøpmannsgata Ung Kunst, Trodheim, Norway (2021); UnNatural History Curated by Invisible Dust, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, UK (2021); Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning, 13th Gwangju Biennial, Curated by Defne Ayas and Natasha Ginwala, South Korea (2021); The Event of a Thread: Global Narratives in Textiles, Curated by Susanne Weiß, Inka Gressel, Öykü Özsoy, Istanbul Modern Museum (2019); Hyper Real The Passion of the Real in Painting and Photography Curated by Susanne Neuburger and Brigitte Franzen at MUMOK Vienna (2010).
She has participated in artist residencies at the Water Mill Center, New York; IASPIS Konstnärsnämnden The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Stockholm; MAC VAL Museum, Vitry-sur-Seine, Paris; Pioneer Works, New York; Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris and Künstlerhaus Bremen. İlkin was part of the artist collective Atıl Kunst, between 2006 and 2013.
