Parrhesia III: Are you brave enough to tell the truth?

Su Alara Acerol

Su Alara Acerol is an archaeologist, art historian and a painter. She graduated from Bilkent University Archaeology and History of Art Department with a full scholarship, she later finished her MA at Koç University Department of Archaeology and History of Art (formerly Anatolian Civilizations and Cultural Heritage Management) with a full scholarship as well. She worked in rescue excavations in different parts of the World. In 2015 she entered Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Painting Department for her second BA. In 2019 she graduated as valedictorian and received first place award from Sakıp Sabancı Art Awards. Since then she has joined many group exhibitions and received several art awards. Her paintings and engravings are in numerous private collections as well as in the Cyprus Modern Art Museum’s collection. She opened her first solo exhibition at Istanbul Concept Gallery in October 2020. She is opening her second solo exhibition with Istanbul Concept Gallery in October 2022.

Olga Alexopoulou

b. 1980, Athens. Graduate of the Ruskin School of Art at Oxford University. Her works have been exhibited in museums such as the Museum of Spyros Vassiliou, The Ethnological Museum of Trace, and Pinakothiki of Piraeus, as well as in solo exhibitions in galleries in Greece and the UK. In 2017, Alexopoulou was named one of the top 50 female street artists in the world in publications in London and Paris. In recent years, her works have been exhibited on walls, in museums, and in galleries around the world. The artist presents nature to the audience in an endless and untamed way without domesticating art.

Yağızhan Çalışkan

Born in Ankara in 1992, the artist is currently working in Istanbul. After graduating from Ankara Anatolian Fine Arts High School in 2010, he completed his undergraduate education with a full scholarship in Plastic Arts and Painting Department at Yeditepe University, Faculty of Fine Arts. He completed his master's degree at the same university and started his Art Proficiency Doctorate program in the Painting Department at Marmara University in 2019, where he is still continuing his studies. He also works as a research assistant at Yeditepe University.

The young artist examines the relationship between human beings and nature on an existential level. With a multidisciplinary approach, the artist, who works in different production areas, sees human creation as nature's effort to understand itself. In his works, without establishing a relationship between time and space, he questions the sharpness of the artificial-natural distinction of human beings and the dogmatic attitude towards nature that develops from this sharpness.

Saygun Dura

Saygun Dura, born in 1964, worked as a photographer and photograph director in an advertising agency in the years between 1989 and 1996. Since then, he has been continuing his career as advertising photographer in his own studio. Dura, who has given seminars on advertising and creative ohotography also has given the lectures called "Advertising Photography, Studio and Light Techniques" in many universities such as Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Department of Graphics, Bahçeşehir University Department of Photography, Doğuş University Department of Graphics, İstanbul Technical University Fine Arts Faculty between 2004 and 2014. He curated the book and exhibition called “Deep Sea Illuminators”, worked in the photo shoots of the project called “Do you know Hasankeyf?”. Also took the underwater photographs of a project which is about producing an underground map of the cistern, well and waterways in Topkapı Palace. Many photographs of him which went on the auction have taken part in special collections and museums. Dura, who provides training for underwater photography, is also a diving trainer and did underwater photo shoots and workshops in many parts of the world. Besides national and international awards, he also held personal exhibitions in İstanbul and New York, participated in many group exhibitions and panels, appeared in selection committees.

Andreas Georgiadis

Andreas Georgiadis was born in 1972 in Thessaloniki. He lives and works in Athens. He studied painting under George Rorris, graphic design at the School of Graphic Arts and Artistic Studies in Athens and illustration in Orleans, France. He has had 13 solo art exhibitions in Greece and overseas and received major distinctions. His works have been acquired by museums, public and private collections, and have illustrated books and records. As a set designer he has helped design the B. and E. Goulandris Foundation as well as many exhibitions at the Gennadius Library, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum and elsewhere. He also works in theatre as a set and costume designer. He heads the art team of Mikri Arktos publications.

Nihal Gündüz

Lives and works in Istanbul. Graduated from the Photography Department of the Fine Arts Faculty at Mimar Sinan University in 1996. Completed her master's degree in Photography at Marmara University in 1999 and then began working professionally in the fields of advertising and fashion. While continuing to work in advertising and fashion, she also teaches Fashion Photography at Yeditepe University's Faculty of Fine Arts.

Gülercan Hacıoğlu

b.1960, Bulgaria. After graduating from the National Art Academy in Sofia, she emigrated to Turkey and earned a master's degree in Fine Arts Painting from Mimar Sinan University. She has also been a mentor to many important contemporary Turkish artists.

Serra Kuşkaya

Serra Kuskaya was born in Istanbul in 1992. After graduating from Istanbul Avni Akyol Anatolian Fİne Arts High School Painting Department, she continued her education at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts Universty Painting Department, and after spending a period of her education at Complutense Universty of Madrid by participating in the Erasmus programme, she complated her undergraduate education in 2015.

She contiues her works in her studio in Fethiye.

In her productions, the artist confronts the nature that has been destroyed by human beings as a result of the destructions created by human beings reflections of inadequacy and helplessness in the effort to adapt. With human waste and artefacts that will take thousands of years to disappear, the ephemerality of our existence and scenes that tell us about the permanence of our traces.

Sema Maşkılı

1980, Edirne. Lives and works in İstanbul, TR. Sema Maşkılı, who completed her undergraduate and graduate education at Mimar Sinan University, Department of Painting, has participated in many group exhibitions held both domestically and internationally since 2001. Since 2006, she has held five solo exhibitions, focusing on the concepts of violence, existence, and ego using the human body in her works and questioning the complexity of human nature through these concepts.

Elena Papadimitriou

She studied at the Faculty of Applied Arts between 1989-1990. Between 1991-1996 Professor P. Tetsis and Professor Ch. She took lessons from Mpotsoglou. Between 1993-1994, St. She completed her education at Carles Fine Arts University.

Tayfun Pirselimoğlu

Born in Trabzon. Pirselimoğlu graduated from Middle East Technical University after which he went to Vienna and enrolled at Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst where he studied under Professor Wolfgang Hutter, one of the most important names in the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. He also studied engraving under Professor Sigi Schenk.

Pirselimoğlu held various solo and joint exhibitions in Turkey and abroad. His drawings have been published in a number of magazines. He is one of the founders of the independent art initiative ‘Akademie Genius’ where he has conducted workshops and given classes.

Pirselimoğlu wrote and directed the films ‘Innowhereland’, ‘Rıza’, ‘Haze’, ‘Hair’, ‘I’m not Him’, ‘Sideway’ and ‘Kerr’. He was also nominated for an Oscar for the movie 'Kerr'. He is the author of seven novels (‘Tales from the Desert’, ‘The Album of the Lost People’, ‘Melancholy’, ‘Towers of the City’, ‘Kerr’, ‘Barber’, ‘Surveyor’) and three story books (‘Hotel Rooms’, ‘The Newest Lives of Harry Lime or Praise to the Third Man’, ‘The Other Side of the Desert’)

Maria Roza

Born in Baku in 1998, lives and works in Ankara. After graduating from the Fine Arts High School of Ankara, she studied at Hacettepe University Painting Department and graduated with a degree. Currently, she is studying in the Master of Fine Arts Program at the same university.

The young artist focuses in her works on the relationship humankind has with animals and with primitivity, and on the structural and functional features of these relations. What she aims for is to make her audience feel the uncanny atmosphere in her works and still provide them with a safe harbour by nesting them in the pleasing harmony and aesthetics of the paintings.

Coşkun Sami

b. Bulgaria, 1973, currently lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey. Graduated of Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Faculty of Painting, Istanbul (BFA / MFA). Regularly exhibits his work in various group shows, illustrated magazines, poetry books, and theatre posters.

Sami's paintings often incorporate architectural and historical references, while maintaining an affinity for the templates of formalist painting. His limited color palette supports his drawing-based process, making visible an effort towards achieving pictorial and formal values. His work exists in a space floating between the stylistic borders of expression and figuration. Sami frequently borrows forgotten, abandoned architectural spaces from the recent past, exposing the possibilities for the existence of anonymous, depoliticized homogeneous spaces. In some of his recent works, he strips away historicism and allusions, instead incorporating objects, rocks, organic matter, and voids that accompany a horizontally-based perception of time.

Sami's paintings reveal a cynicism towards politics, a characteristic developed from his upbringing. He employs references and motifs of modernity, progress, regress, and the grand narratives of the past. In some of his paintings, he illustrates how the political is reduced to its grotesque dimension, with power struggles, flag-waving, and the reselling of imaginary dreams. His work engages in a hauntology research of its own, exploring how the agendas of contemporary societies are shaped by ghosts of the past.

Yonca Saraçoğlu

Born in Ankara. Graduated from St. Joseph High School, Istanbul. After graduating from State Academy of Fine Arts, Sculpture Department settled in Paris in 1988. Studied at Sorbonne French Language and Civilization Department. Began to study painting, made vocational made ​​trips to various European countries. Returned to Turkey in May 1991. After a happy period of intensive photographing discovered Istanbul and decided to create her own artistic universe. Works in her own studio in Cihangir, Istanbul. Saraçoğlu sees art as an inner transformer, a way of loving life and beings, and a state of resistance.