Fatoş İrwen

Fatoş İrwen was born in the Sûr neighbourhood of Diyarbakır, Turkey, and studied painting at Dicle University, graduating in 2004. She is based in Istanbul and Diyarbakır. Her practice covers works on paper, installation, video, photography, textile and performance.

İrwen builds her work from modest materials, chiefly paper, tea and her own hair. Her subjects include justice, power, belief systems, geography and the body, and she draws on childhood memory and personal experience. In Cracked Ground (2019), tea-stained fragments of paper are stitched together with her hair. The series dates from her imprisonment in Diyarbakır from 2017 to 2020. Rosa (2018 to 2020) takes the form of a pink child's garment and refers to the hedgehogs of the Hevsel Gardens.

Her solo exhibitions include Rû Bi Rû at Zilberman Istanbul in 2026 and Improper at Galerie Stadtpark in Krems in 2024. Others were Sûr at Zilberman Berlin in 2023 and Exceptional Times at DEPO Istanbul and Karşı Sanat Çalışmaları in 2021. She took part in the 5th International Mardin Biennial in 2022 and in The Sky Was Candy at Arter in 2026. İstanbul Modern acquired Rosa in 2026, and the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection holds her drawing Hevsel and the video Tigris. In 2023 she received a special mention in the Carol Rama Award.