Özlem Altın: Solo exhibition “Release”

Özlem Altın (she/her) explores the body at rest and the inanimate in action in her paintings, collages, photographs, and artist books. To create her work, Altın digs through a photographic collection she has assembled over the years, combining found images with her own photographs into a dense constellation of amalgams. By finding connections between layers of photomontage and ink, the artist prompts viewers to create narratives by “acknowledging what is happening in between the images.” Some emotionally resonant images—the mask, the mermaid, the heron—are symbols that she frequently returns to; they embody something part human and part animal, or a state of in-betweenness, and are recurrent in her work. Her flowing yet complex nets of images contribute to elaborate a narrative, at times mythological, on the bodily existence. The exhibition “Release” is accompanied by a display of Altın’s publishing, which plays a vital role in her artistic process.

In 2022, Özlem Altın was part of the 59th Venice Biennale The Milk of Dreams curated by Cecilia Alemani. Furthermore, she most recently participated a.o. in touch.Politiken der Berührung, Berlin (2023); Tongues of Time in Villa Romana, Florence (2021); Companion Pieces, MoMA, NY (2020); The Seventh Continent, 16th Istanbul Biennial (2019); and We don’t need another hero, 10th Berlin Biennial (2018).

Altın received a Master of Fine Art in 2006 following the postgraduate studies at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2004- 2006). Altın was a guest-professor for photography in HGB Leipzig in 2020-2021, and currently is UMPRUM visiting artist at the academy in Prague. She lives and works in Berlin, Germany.