Baris Gokturk grew up during The Kurdish–Turkish conflict, an ongoing conflict between the Turkish Republic and insurgent groups. His unique visual language is crafted from a desire to see socio-political change and to harness the power and mutability of the image. Yet Gokturk is not a traditional painter. Rather he appropriates, transfers, layers, rubs, reduces, and sculpts images onto surfaces with a painterly approach. Using political, historical, and newsworthy imagery he intuitively responds to their themes and aesthetics by adding to and reducing the surface. Through this process, artworks appear dense, dynamic, and present, yet also abstracted, ghostly and fleeting. Individual and collective stories merge on large cascading tapestries and on objects layered in photo transfers to form what Gokturk describes as an “archeological network of contemporary culture.” 

In Istanbul, on his walk to school, Gokturk witnessed women protestors holding up photos of their sons missing due to the conflict. As years passed the women aged yet the photos of their loved ones remained static. To capture this protest ritual and the idea of time’s passing, Gokturk created Saturday (2018), an accumulative portrait of these women that preserved their action. Through layering, individuals are partially visible representing memories fading through time, yet collectively appear dense and powerful. The paradox of imagery disappearing in collectivity to together become more visible—united against the body politic—is at the heart of Gokturk’s practice. 

Gokturk lived in Puerto Rico before moving to New York where he has resided for over two decades. All Saints, 2021 is a collage of New York City street-dancers performing at block parties held in 2020 during the pandemic. The closeness of bodies is complicated by a time when breathing, physical contact and sociability are high stakes. Just as oil paint has historically been activated to figuratively paint flesh, Gokturk uses image transfers as a metaphorical skin to depict his figures. Adhering this flexible skin to the surface, Gokturk displaces and allows the image to form freely. This 28-foot tapestry is interwoven with flames and landscapes appearing translucent and fragile yet compact and commanding.

Baris Gokturk used his time at Fountainhead Residency for research, garnering stories from individuals of various cultures and immigrant experiences as inspiration for his solo exhibition in Istanbul. Miami provided Gokturk with an ideal visual archive for future works.