The scenario is a hotel room in Jakarta, Indonesia, where the Istanbul based artist Özge Çokgezen was quarantining before jumping to her newest adventure: to be the Artistic Director of Ole Ukena Studio in Bali.
“I put my life on a 30 kg suitcase and left”, told the artist to The Dank Project. But we will get to that part
soon enough. Özge has been all over the world - and of course, all over Istanbul with all her abilities. Painting, sculpting, exploring digital art and videos: there isn’t a limit for a contemporary artist to explore her universe.
She started her desire of calling herself an artist early on. “I never liked school that much. I wanted to make art! So in 7th grade I called Pera Fine Arts High School in Istanbul and asked how I could enroll in their program?” And that is how she beginned her career, establishing herself by degree as an artist since High School and specializing in painting.
In her personal biography, Özge defines herself as a talent that does not “limit her expression to a single medium and allows her intention or inspiration to be better expressed in the completed artwork on post-truth concepts.” Hard to find better words to express what comes as her creations.
“I am definitely an abstract thinker, that is what I like. I am inspired by nature a lot and actually, what inspires me the most is the color white! When I see a full white space my brain works better and everything just comes to the right place. I feel like I can tell about abstract thoughts again and again and create a whole thing. That inspires me.”
With so many possibilities to express what is in her mind at the moment she starts creating, the artist finished High School in 2010 and decided there was too much in the world to learn about her main passion: Contemporary Art. “This is a movement we are still living in! It is in constant change, there is so much to explore, so many amazing artists and work to see around the world. It’s a constant learning process.”
After trying to find herself studying Fashion Design at Istanbul Technical University, she realized that wasn’t the best match for her so she enrolled in Management of Performing Arts at Beykent University and “graduated with a first”.
“That was when I understood the contemporary definition of art itself. I generally don’t like any school definition of what art is, since it’s such an abstract feeling, but that helped me see where I want to go.”
So she found the path she wanted to follow: to learn more about art from all over the world. “I was always working while studying, it was a mess. I would literally go to college, do all my assignments after class and run to work”, she says. On summers or when she could, she would dedicate herself to learning trips - where she would visit museums and galleries, get to know more about abstract art from other talent’s point of view and get even more inspired. “I studied in Berlin, Italy, NY, everywhere I was privileged enough to be able to. But to be honest, where I learned the most is always watching the work of other people.”
Always exploring the business and communication fields of work and keeping her production of creative pieces as a - at the time - side gig, Özge is grateful for all the struggle that taught her a little bit of everything.
“I have always worked so hard in multiple fields , that now I can call myself a person who lives for art, works with art, but also understands a lot of marketing, communication and business too. Nothing should be taken for granted.”
No wonder with all this curiosity and passion for art itself, her list of exhibitions and contributed exhibitions is long:
Exhibitions
Solstice; Dada Salon Art Gallery - 11.06.2019
Açık Atölye Günleri; 9.Sokak - 1.05.2019
Contemporary İstanbul; CI19 - 12.09.2019
OTONOM; AOS, 6. & 9 - 10.10.2019
Virtual Contemporary İstanbul; CI20 - 21.12.2021
Contemporary İstanbul; CI20 - 01.06.2021
Wu Bodrum; Shopigo ART 2021 - 01.07.2021
Contributing Exhibitions
Art in the middle finger
“A big red art on my right hand middle finger”, she laughs while showing the tattoo she has “as a daily reminder to never stop producing art.”
The idea came a couple of years ago, when she found herself drawing on obligations that did not involve using her energy and time to create absolutely nothing. “I had too much work to do, I was studying, I was tired and overwhelmed. So one day I stopped and realized: oh shit, I haven’t made art for all these months? So I want this to be my daily reminder to create to live.”
Özge has no intentions of leaving her Turkish life behind, even though now she will be taking a new road and calling Bali home. The idea is to maintain her knowledge and work alive on exhibitions in her homeland.
For the forsaken future? Well, you cannot expect a regular answer for that question coming from such an abstract and creative mind. At the moment her main goal is to accomplish the dream of a Land Art in Bali.
“It requires extreme thinking. The idea is to discover the island and the surroundings and see what is the best place to do so. You know, for that you have to go through nature and explore the roots of your own thoughts. I am into that part at the moment. I feel very generous with my own being in this land for the moment.”
For now, you can purchase her current work and see more of her pieces at Ambidexter or on her ShopigoArt profile. You can also visit her Instagram for more personal and work projects. For her digital art content, visit her Vimeo.
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