Emir Furkan Tekkalmaz
Emir Furkan Tekkalmaz was born on July 15, 1997, in Eskişehir. He began his painting education at Eskişehir Fine Arts High School in 2011. In September 2015, he enrolled in the Painting Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. During his university years, he studied under Prof. Nedret Sekban and Dr. Ahmet Umur Deniz. He also took elective applied workshops in Lithography Printmaking, Fresco, Sgraffito and Secco techniques, Leaded and Mosaic stained glass techniques, and Engraving Printmaking.
From September 2019 to March 2020, he worked as a student assistant in the Fresco Workshop. In August 2020, he graduated from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University with a GPA of 3.41/4.00.
In his paintings, pattern, form, light-dark contrasts, and color are the main elements that construct the image. He primarily focuses on pattern, form, and light-dark elements, using color as a supporting element to create a balanced composition. His approach to form is built on specific contrasts—such as fullness and emptiness, diagonal oppositions, horizontals, and verticals—that are emphasized within the composition.
His works, inspired by personal observations and testimonies, reveal his individual process, temporal changes, and developmental stages. While creating his paintings, he organizes them into series and aims to highlight and express the impact of form emerging from the synthesis of plastic contrasts, rationality, and emotion.
Fatih Şimşek
Fatih Şimşek was born in 1992 in Bartın. After completing his secondary and high school education in Bartın, he enrolled in the Painting Department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in 2010. He participated in various exhibitions and art events both within and outside the school. During the 2014-2015 academic year, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland, through a student exchange program. He graduated from Yalçın Karayağız’s studio in the spring term of 2016. Currently, he works as a live model at Kocaeli Faculty of Fine Arts.
This work explores a multilayered narrative questioning the relationship between surface and figure. Wall textures are shaped using silicone and spatula, evoking a weathered, peeling surface worn by time. This physical texture functions not only as a background but also as a layer carrying the emotional weight of the painting.
Although the figures in the central composition appear as a group, each poses as if withdrawn into their own inner world. The space presented to the viewer, together with the material’s heaviness, invites reflection on time, memory, and the state of being an individual. This piece aims to create a silent space, both a stage and an interior, where the viewer can hear their own inner echoes.
Sevilay Nurten Şahin
Sevilay Nurten Şahin was born in 1997 in Istanbul. After studying Painting at Aşık Veysel Fine Arts High School, she completed her undergraduate degree in Painting at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. She graduated from the Yalçın Karayağız Studio (Studio 5) and later worked as an assistant to Mustafa Özel. She is currently one of the 5th-term artists of the “A Year in the Passage” project by İyilik İçin Sanat Association, continuing her artistic practice in the project’s studio at DenizBank.
"A moment hidden behind a window; two silhouettes. Warmth inside, night outside. The window is not just a frame, but a silent witness gazing into the intimacy of love from the outside."
Two embracing figures protect both their inner worlds and the shared space they’ve created. This scene, illuminated by soft light, becomes a quiet yet infinite expression of closeness. The painting captures not only the visible tenderness but also the emotional architecture that intimacy builds—fragile, warm, and quietly radiant.
Asya Nur Hasgül
Asya Nur Hasgül was born in 1999 in Ankara. She studied Painting at Ankara Fine Arts High School and attended École supérieure d'art d'Aix-en-Provence Félix Ciccolini in France between 2021 and 2022. She graduated from the Painting Department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in 2023 and is currently one of the 5th-term artists of the “A Year in the Passage” project by İyilik İçin Sanat Association. For about a year, she has been leading the workshops “ID Photo Intervention” and “Photograph Intervention.” She also works as a scenographer (set painter) at the Ankara State Opera and Ballet.
Her series “Mourning in Monologue” stages an introspective play about the grieving process and the transformation of identity. Through self-portraits from different periods, the series explores themes such as suppressed emotions, vulnerability, resistance, and confrontation. Each figure becomes a move in this inner game—sometimes aggressive, sometimes defensive, sometimes simply waiting.
The series constructs the mental landscape of the individual like a chessboard. Every portrait represents a strategy; each textual installation echoes a thought within the mind. In this context, chess is not merely a game—it is a plane of existence governed by control, loss, calculation, and balance, woven together by intuition.
While the artist reveals multiple layers of the self on this board, the viewer is invited to become a silent witness to the game. The fluidity of oil paint makes emotional disintegration visible, while word installations made from PLA filament offer a material counterpart to moments etched into memory. These words sometimes embody an unwanted thought, sometimes the repetitive echo of an inner voice. Scattered like chess pieces across the board, the words shape the rhythm and psychological tension of the narrative.
Kardelen Erken
Kardelen Erken was born in 1997 in Istanbul. She graduated from the Painting Department of Avni Akyol Fine Arts High School in 2015. In 2017, she began her undergraduate studies in Painting at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, and after completing her degree, she enrolled in the university’s Master’s program in 2023. That same year, she was selected as a 5th-term artist in the “A Year in the Passage” program.
Drawing inspiration from memories and visual impressions of her childhood, Erken paints the transient nature of the present moment. In her visual world, where lines, textures, and layers intertwine, the viewer encounters the quiet moments of nature. The dialogue between line and color evokes both the simplicity and complexity of open fields.
Inspired by walks through hayfields and the calm stillness of nature, her works invite the viewer to join in this act of walking. Her gestural brushstrokes and thick layers of paint highlight the fleeting atmosphere of each moment, while prominent depictions of grasses and natural elements emerge as imprints of memory.
Erken’s work emphasizes the freedom of childhood and the deep bond between the human spirit and the land.
A Year in the Passage: Motion
Initiated by İyilik İçin Sanat Derneği (Art for Goodness Association), A Year in the Passage is a project designed to provide young artists who have graduated from fine arts faculties with a dedicated studio environment for one year, aiming to support their artistic growth. The project seeks to offer both the physical and conceptual infrastructure necessary for emerging artists during their transition into professional art practice.
Now in its fifth edition, A Year in the Passage is supported by DenizBank, which provides the studio space, and the program is carried out under the guidance of painter Prof. Dr. Nedret Sekban and internationally renowned artist Aslı Özok. This initiative aims to instill intellectual and technical depth in young artists through a disciplined production process, continuing with the vision of contributing new voices to the contemporary art scene in Turkey.
Motion is not solely a phenomenon of the physical world; it is a multilayered process inherent in existence, thought, and art itself. In ancient philosophy, Aristotle defined motion as the transition from potentiality to actuality—a concept that has since become a fundamental dynamic in both modern science and contemporary art. Motion is the dissolution of the static, the breaking of form, and the reconstruction of meaning.
In art, motion transcends formal movement. It becomes the expression of an intellectual tremor, an intuition shifting direction, or an emotion relocating over time. In this context, motion invites us to understand artistic practice not merely through outcomes, but through processes. The works featured in this exhibition are testaments to such processes—not depictions of completion, but traces of transformation caught in a moment.
Within this project, the artists have not only produced works but also transformed their own artistic languages, establishing an uninterrupted flow between their inner and outer worlds. Time here is not linear; it is layered, intertwined, and plural. Thought does not revolve around a fixed center; it is fluid, open-ended, and polyphonic. Artistic form moves away from fixity, engaging in a continuous negotiation with meaning.
All of the works in this exhibition carry traces not only of individual experiences but also of a shared atmosphere and conceptual climate. The year spent in the studio represents not just a physical span of time, but also a conceptual and emotional motion. While constantly questioning themselves and their production, the artists become both the carriers and the subjects of motion. For this reason, the exhibition is not a conclusion, but a visible moment of an ongoing movement. “Time bends, thought curves, matter abandons itself”—these words encapsulate the philosophy underlying the works presented here. Motion is not a state of completion, but a continuous becoming, a constant rethinking, and an endless reshaping.
Curator: Hicran Aksöz
DEVİNİM
Tuğçe Balcı & Nida Erdoğan & Kardelen Erken & Asya Nur Hasgül
Sevilay Nurten Şahin & Fatih Şimşek & Emir Furkan Tekkalmaz
02.07.2025 - 20.07.2025
offgrid art project is hosting the exhibition “Motion” between
July 2 – 20, 2025, in collaboration with the İyilik İçin Sanat Association. The exhibition features works by young artists participating in the fifth edition of the “A Year in the Passage” project and traces transformation across physical, intellectual, and emotional layers.
Curated by Hicran Aksöz, the exhibition approaches motion not as a result but as an ongoing process. This perspective interprets time not as linear, but as a multi-layered and intertwined structure, inviting the viewer beyond fixed forms.
Works by Tuğçe Balcı, Nida Erdoğan, Kardelen Erken, Asya Nur Hasgül, Sevilay Nurten Şahin, Fatih Şimşek, and Emir Furkan Tekkalmaz reflect a year-long production process, establishing a balance that oscillates between individual expression and collective transformation.
“Motion” follows the dynamic connection artists establish between their inner worlds and external realities, while also highlighting the ever-changing nature of contemporary art.
Tuğçe Balcı
Tuğçe Balcı was born in 2001 in Kadıköy, Istanbul. Between 2016 and 2019, she received art education in various studios, shaping her creative practice from an early age. She graduated from the Painting Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts and Design at Hitit University in 2024. Currently, she continues her artistic production as a 5th-term artist of the “A Year in the Passage” program, organized by the İyilik İçin Sanat Association and hosted at DenizBank Headquarters.
In her work, Balcı explores the relationship between the destruction of space and the layers of memory. In her "Ruin Series", she focuses on abandoned structures, the erosive power of time, and the spatial projections of memory. She often uses materials like concrete, iron, and fabric—surfaces that are both rigid and permeable—to create a passage between physical and conceptual spaces.
In her recent works, she constructs a dreamlike and utopian world detached from reality. In this world, time is not linear but circular; memories are not fixed but fragmented. The viewer is invited into a state of consciousness that drifts between the familiar and the unfamiliar. She interprets the collapse of architecture not only as a physical destruction but also as a form of mental dissolution. These works demand not only to be seen, but to be remembered. The meaning that emerges from the ruins is an effort to create a new visual way of thinking—existence sprouting from emptiness.
Nida Erdoğan
Nida Erdoğan was born in 1999 in Istanbul. Her interest in art dates back to childhood, and she completed her undergraduate studies in Painting at Namık Kemal University between 2017 and 2021. Building on the technical foundation gained through classical art education, she currently explores contemporary art practices through her master's studies at Yıldız Technical University’s Institute of Art and Design.
For Erdoğan, art is a kind of psychological archaeology—a way to project inner conflicts onto a universal stage. The bird phobia and knot motif that emerged from a childhood trauma are not only reflections of personal memory but also maps of the collective unconscious. The knots in her work carry traces of social pathologies: unresolved traumas of societies become entangled in the nervous systems of individuals, crystallizing within the body.
Her installations convey a quiet chaos. Each knot is not a problem to be solved but a fold of existence that simply is. Neither fully ordered nor completely chaotic, each form emerges from silence, coils around itself, and exists without seeking a center. In this work, the knot no longer represents the scream of trauma—it becomes the echo of that scream, absorbed by time and embedded in the body.
Resembling the internal architecture of the body, these folds exist neither entirely inside nor outside. Inner and outer, memory and forgetting, self and other—these all blur into one another. The State of Being (Olma Hâli) does not represent a direction, but a presence. These forms neither advance nor recede; they simply persist. Unanchored but not scattered, undefined yet familiar—they continue in a suspended state.
This installation does not mark a beginning or an end, but being itself. The knot does not seek resolution or conclusion. Its motion is slow, winding—like a thought shaped by memory over time. Here, form becomes less a narrative than a condition: a calm chaos.
And within this chaos, one thing remains—to be.
About İyilik İçin Sanat Derneği (Art for Goodness Association)
İyilik İçin Sanat Derneği (Art for Goodness Association) is a civil society organization with the most extensive network in the Turkish art scene. Founded by a collective of women art enthusiasts, the Association set out with the mission of promoting Turkish artists on an international level. For the past ten years, it has also been working to increase the visibility of emerging talents by providing them with production spaces and mentorship opportunities.
Through its weekly Art Gatherings, which include studio visits and international art trips held every Tuesday, the Association has realized over 500 events to date—and these gatherings continue with unwavering commitment.
The Association has brought art to broader audiences through long-term initiatives such as A Year in the Passage, Impressions from Anatolia, Atölye Cer, Alenen Sanat, Children’s Academy, Atölye Habitat, and Art Ambassadors. Drawing strength from the transformative power of art, it has developed partnerships with various institutions in the field of art consultancy, enabling an active presence in 70 cities across Türkiye.
Thanks to its ongoing projects, the Association has provided over 4,000 hours of creative production time for young artists. By acquiring more than 250 works for its collection, it has made a contribution exceeding 400 million TL to the Turkish art market.
