İlgen Arzık

İlgen Arzık was born in İskenderun in 1980 and lives and works in Istanbul. She works in photography, watercolour and collage, and her experimental prints are made in analogue darkrooms that she designs herself. Trained as a painter, she handles a sheet of photographic paper as a painter handles a canvas, and each of her photographic works is unique.

Her practice starts from the observation that many digital editing methods descend from analogue photography. She intervenes physically and chemically on the print, and sometimes assembles the results into collages. The photogram has a central place in the work. She first used it in the series Hallucinogen Development (2014), which constructs images of historical moments that were never photographed. Later series include A True Story (2018) and Contact (2022).

Arzık graduated in painting from the Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts in 2002. A True Story, her first solo exhibition, was held at Bozlu Art Project, Istanbul, in 2018, and Let's Talk About the Bright Side followed at Muaf Beyoğlu in 2020. She took part in the 1st International Izmir Art Biennial in 2011. She received achievement awards in 2008, 2009 and 2011, and joined the Black Sea Calling residency exchange in Krems in 2012. Her work is shown in Panorama: Dreams and Places at Istanbul Modern in 2026.