Zeynep Kayan Artworks

Zeynep Kayan's photographs draw attention to image construction. Her black-and-white landscapes and portraits are digitally modified and abstracted, blurred, stacked, or manipulated to highlight the artist's interference.

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Process and Control

Kayan's digitally manipulated images reflect the artist's desire to capture moments that occur by chance, resulting in a series of works that blur the distinction between random acts of production and the control of the artist's hand.

In the 2010 series 'Torn', the artist incorporates tear marks into black-and-white landscapes and self-portraits, as if a literal allusion to the shredding of old images and modifications in the landscape of memory.

In 'Uncomplete' (2013), the same blurred female figures appear in empty fields or nocturnal environments—protagonists in incomplete narratives—with versions of the same image stacked vertically or arranged in a grid.

Constructed

For 'Constructed' (2016) Kayan uses the body as a material to enquire into vision and perception. Placing familiar photographs in new surroundings, Kayan produces analogue collages that transform physical space using abstract elements. She set old images of bodies and limbs from her personal archive in built environments. Constructed_19 (2016), for example, depicts layered photographs of an open palm, which are impaled by a wooden stick set against a wall.

Other photographs, like Constructed_28 (2016), show obvious signs of manipulation, with the addition of auburn specks of combustion burning away the face of a woman, as if a literal display of a creation process that begins with the torching of memory.

Temporary Sameness

Increasingly abstracted, Kayan's 'Temporary Sameness' (2019) series shows versions of the same photographs captured at different angles with minor variations, in which human bodies engage material objects through performative gestures.

In the archival pigment print Pipe I (2019), seven photographs stacked in a long line show the same body draped in black with both arms nested inside a silver pipe. Slight variations between images blend into the next, generating the impression of a wave-like movement that evokes the pipe's material conditions.

Soaked

The 2019 series 'Soaked' shows portrait images that appear to have been submerged in water, in which the upper layer of the portraits seem to be in the process of peeling away from the surface of the photograph.

Capturing different stages of this material transfiguration, works like Soaked III retain the air bubbles gathered on the subject's face and show a thin layer peeling away. In its aftermath, Soaked IV, the upper layer appears to be a different surface entirely, independent from the original portrait.

Browse Artworks
A Present That Remembers: Reclining Chairs, A Scene by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork print
Zeynep Kayan A Present That Remembers: Reclining Chairs, A Scene, 2024 Hahnemuhle photo rag ultrasmooth print
71.5 x 105 cm
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second time with the chair by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork print, installation, moving image
Zeynep Kayan second time with the chair, 2024 Installation: 3-channel video, ropes covered with mud and liquid clay, 6 prints (variable dimensions), text on A4 paper
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From the series ‘Temporary Sameness’: Insulator IV by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork moving image
Zeynep Kayan From the series ‘Temporary Sameness’: Insulator IV, 2019 2 channel video, 01’25’’, 00’37’’
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From the series ‘Temporary Sameness’: Insulator III by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork photography, moving image
Zeynep Kayan From the series ‘Temporary Sameness’: Insulator III, 2019 Installation: archival pigment print, video, 0'14''
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From the series Constructed_20 by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork painting
Zeynep Kayan From the series Constructed_20, 2016 Pigment print on fine art paper
110 x 73 cm
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From the series Constructed_19 by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork painting
Zeynep Kayan From the series Constructed_19, 2016 Pigment print on fine art paper
110 x 73 cm
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From the series Constructed_18 by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork photography
Zeynep Kayan From the series Constructed_18, 2016 Pigment print on fine art paper
110 x 73 cm
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From the series Constructed_17 by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork works on paper, photography
Zeynep Kayan From the series Constructed_17, 2016 Pigment print on fine art paper
80 x 120 cm
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From The Series Torn by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork photography
Zeynep Kayan From The Series Torn, 2010 Pigment print
39 x 61.5 cm
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From The Series Torn by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork photography
Zeynep Kayan From The Series Torn, 2010 Pigment print
39 x 61.5 cm
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From The Series Torn by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork photography
Zeynep Kayan From The Series Torn, 2010 Pigment print
39 x 61.5 cm
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From The Series Torn by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork photography
Zeynep Kayan From The Series Torn, 2010 Pigment print
39 x 61.5 cm
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From the series Constructed_30 by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork photography
Zeynep Kayan From the series Constructed_30, 2016–2017 Archival pigment print on fine art paper
50 x 112 cm
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From the series Constructed_10 by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork photography
Zeynep Kayan From the series Constructed_10, 2016 Pigment print on fine art paper
50 x 75 cm
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From the series Constructed_06 by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork photography
Zeynep Kayan From the series Constructed_06, 2016 Pigment print on fine art paper
75 x 50 cm
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Mirror II by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork print
Zeynep Kayan Mirror II, 2019 Archival pigment print
100 x 150 cm
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Mirror I by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork print
Zeynep Kayan Mirror I, 2019 Archival pigment print
100 x 150 cm
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Pipe I by Zeynep Kayan contemporary artwork print
Zeynep Kayan Pipe I, 2019 Archival pigment print
310 x 100 cm
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