Canan Tolon’s art practice, paintings and installations, deals with the visualization of space through different dimensions such as imagination, memory and time. Her practice has developed around the culture of nature and architecture and still continues to make the interaction between these two visible with repetitive scraping and slicing movements on canvas surfaces, bears similarities with photography techniques.
The artist’s work evokes ever-changing cityscapes, historical sites and events, as well as increasingly sprawling constructions. In this way, the artist makes the viewer hesitate about whether the images he sees are real or an illusion. Through her abstract and undefined compositions; Tolon reflects the chaos and uncertainty created by the processes of man’s changing and transforming nature in an unsettling atmosphere.
In her works, Canan Tolon uses natural materials such as grass seed and water, leaving the metal pieces she places on her canvases under the influence of the open-air conditions, so that nature comes to life in her painting.
Canan Tolon graduated from the French High School in Istanbul with a degree in Literature and Philosophy. Later on, followed an education on Interior Design at A.A Middlesex University and she completed Berkeley with a master’s degree in Architecture. The works of the artist are included in various collections such as The British Museum (London), Arter Museum (Istanbul) and Istanbul Modern Museum (Istanbul).
Tolon lives and works between Istanbul and San Francisco.

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