TUNCA

Since the early 2000s, TUNCA’s interest has mainly focused on processes of subjectivation at play against and within meta-narratives of history and politics. His multi-faceted practice ranging from drawing and canvas painting to sculptural forms, video and performance captures the material residues of history as components of collective memory. Historical sublimation and ideological constructs of social and political events are central issues in his practice. He investigates the monumental layers of ’memory’ ranging from official histories to individual stories, and he frames, within his art practice, the phenomenon of testimony beyond documentarism. Differing from a photorealist genre of drawing, his employment of the photography does not merely indicate an attempt of duplicating an image but to frame his field of study as in the scientist’s. Indeed, these photographic testimonials, merged with artist’s own recollections are then incorporated onto the paper with oil charcoal, a chemical residue of another sort. His research-based practice is ‘historiographic’, in the sense that it figuratively excavates, reconstructs and reenacts the past.

TUNCA's solo shows to this day include “Misfortunes and New Joys”, Galerist, Istanbul (2021); “Terra Amata”, Galerist, Istanbul (2017); “Desire”, ArtOn Istanbul (2014) and “Residue”, Pi Artworks, İstanbul (2012). He participated in group exhibitions at museums and art institutions including the Tel Aviv University Art Gallery, Tel Aviv, (2018); Corridor Project Space, Amsterdam (2017); Kasa Gallery, Istanbul (2016); santralistanbul, Istanbul (2015); CerModern, Ankara (2015); the 4th International Çanakkale Biennial, Canakkale (2014), KuadGallery, Istanbul (2014), Proje 4L Elgiz Contemporary Art Museum, Istanbul (2011), and Siemens Art Gallery, Istanbul (2010). In 2014, for his solo exhibition “Desire” at artON Istanbul, the artist received culinary training and realized a series of performances around gastronomy, history and politics. In 2005, parallel to the 9th Istanbul Biennial, as part of the performance titled ‘Floating Slum House’ the artist spent a week, together with Guido Casaretto, in a floating slum house they built on the Golden Horn while documenting this process. TUNCA was a resident artist at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2017, and at the Artport Tel Aviv in 2018. A graduate of Mimar Sinan University’s Faculty of Fine Arts, TUNCA lives and works in Ayvalik.