BIOGRAPHY

Azat Yeman was born in Tatvan district of Bitlis in 1992. Between 2005 and 2009, he studied in the Painting Department of Kırşehir Anatolian Fine Arts High School. In 2013, he graduated from Ondokuz Mayıs University, Department of Painting Education. In the same year, he voluntarily taught painting classes for a period at BİSAD Art Center in Bitlis, his hometown.

Between 2014 and 2016, he completed his master's degree with a thesis in the Painting Department of Kayseri Erciyes University, Faculty of Fine Arts. He participated in numerous international engraving and painting exhibitions. His works are featured in many private and corporate collections both in Turkey and abroad.

The artist continues his artistic activities and productions in Istanbul and Mersin, and currently works with the French Singulart Gallery and various art galleries in Turkey.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My works, which at first glance give the impression of a portrait, transform into reflections of visages upon closer inspection. Starting from the visible and known, they point to the existence of the invisible. My reality within the invisible is the phenomenon of "the exhausted and consumed self."

Selves struggling within matter gain existence on the artwork and become images. They are like secret letters that emphasize the true meaning. Deception, betrayal, abandonment, and the collapse of beliefs pass before our eyes like a film strip.

Consumption has begun and will continue until it consumes differences and values, making them resemble itself. We cannot find these in specific ethnic identities. The figures I use in my paintings are neither Roman nor Turkish. Whether their name is Semra or Izabel means nothing.

Identities have no names; because each structure is only a part and a tool serving a single purpose. The masks on the faces and the real faces behind those masks are the result of all experiences, sorrows, and pains; everything I have felt by going through them.

The figures' self-assured postures, unaware of the impending danger, give the feeling that they will change at any moment. The transparent boundaries surrounding them seem to become clearer with awareness.

The bodies in the works are no one and everyone. They are representations of bodies that are alone in crowds, consumed by consuming, transformed into soulless images, having lost their identities and affiliations, captive in their own prisons, obedient, and proving their existence through obedience.