Artist’s Biography

Fatma Garip was born in 1962 in Çifteler, Eskişehir. She pursued her professional career as a mining engineer with a PhD in mineral processing. However, her passion for art started when she was unemployed between 1983 and 1985, during which she made her first sketches. Years later, she revived this passion and graduated from Anadolu University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting in 2023 and enriched her art education by completing a Minor Program at the Department of Printmaking in 2024.

Fatma Garip, as an artist who assumes the versatility of contemporary art, works with mixed techniques and different materials in her works. In her art, she focuses on the idea of 'making the existing visible' and expresses her stance against life and order with her works. In her paintings, which she creates with embroidery on lace, she combines traditional and contemporary elements, and works on her personal experiences and traces of both the external world and subjective reality. Drawing attention with her abstract and linear expression, the artist also works in the fields of poetry, installation and video art.

She continues her artistic productions in her studio, which she founded and named 'Fatma Garip İşlik & Art & Gallery' in Eskişehir. One of the group exhibitions she participated in is the    Mini Works International Exhibition organized by Balıkesir University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Painting Department. One of her works was also included in the Mini Works International Exhibition Catalog. In addition, her poems have been published in the literature journal ‘Sincan İstasyonu.’

Artist’s Statement

In my artistic works, I strive to express themes such as emptiness, self-portraiture, the concept of bond and subjective reality with a simple language of expression. Since I take experimentation seriously, I express these concepts in a unique way using different techniques and materials. With this understanding, the paintings I create with needle embroidery on handmade lace generate new layers of meaning in my art by combining traditional and contemporary techniques. In this context, in addition to painting, I try to expand my artistic language by producing works in different disciplines such as poetry, installation and video art. 

I believe that line and texture are effective means of expression in my paintings. Although colour is in the second plan in my works, I make special colour choices to strengthen the description. In this special colour selection, I draw inspiration from nature and Turkish art.

My paintings mostly consist of square compositions. The reason for this is that the square shape represents order, balance and a protected area for me. At the same time, this concept, which expresses certain boundaries and a clear stance, has an important place in my artistic approach. Therefore, the square compositions play an important role in my artistic works to ensure both the integrity of meaning and their inner integrity.