Ece Yalçın
@eceyalcinstudio / eceyalcin.e@gmail.com
info
Ece Yalçın (b. 1995, Istanbul) studied visual arts in New York and Istanbul. Through painting, installation and digital 3d, Yalçın conceptualizes materials and spatiality.
In her practice, Ece Yalçın reorganizes in situ materials and forms through mediums. The artist places site–specificity and painting discipline at the center of her practice, reconsidering spaces related to her working area through the binding concepts of the two. As a result, her works take shape as echoes of various spaces such as exhibition sites and installments, gallery storage areas, and studio spaces. Yalçın shows/copies inactive or non-working elements in these spaces or renders them non-functional via choice of material in the opposite direction of their intended use, gathering her chosen mediums with a minimalist approach.
Ece Yalçın pratiğinde mekânlara ait malzeme ve formları, mediumlar üzerinden yeniden düzenliyor. Sanatçı mekana özgülüğü ve resim disiplinini merkeze koyup ikisinin bağlayıcı kavramları üzerinden kendi çalışma alanıyla ilişkili mekanları yeniden düşünüyor. Böylece çalışmaları; sergi mekanları ve kurulumlar, sanat depolanan alanlar, üretimhaneler gibi çeşitli alanların izdüşümleri olarak biçimleniyor. Yalçın, kullandığı medium ve malzemeleri, bu alanlardaki inaktif ya da çalışmayan şeyleri göstermesi üzerine ya da malzemesinin aksi yönünde, işlevsizleştirme üzerinden minimalist bir tutumla bir araya getiriyor.
CV
Education
MA Visual Arts // Sabancı University / Istanbul / Sep 2021 - Dec 2023
BA Visual Arts // Işık University / Istanbul / 2017 - 2020
BFA Fine Arts // School of Visual Arts / New York / 2013 - 2016
Residencies
Home Workspace Program // Ashkal Alwan / online / 2021
Residencies
Home Workspace Program // Ashkal Alwan / online / 2021
Projects & Exhibitions
2026 – Use Becoming No Use Becoming Use Again / BENTA / İstanbul / solo show.
2025 – Survival Kit for Dummies / Martch Art Project / İstanbul / group show curated by Melis Golar.
2025 – Network Nihilism: Soft Infrastructures / Pasaj - Barın Han / İstanbul / group show curated by Evagoria Dapola.
2025 – Thank You for Your Time Kasa Gallery / İstanbul / 2 Person Exhibition.
2026 – Use Becoming No Use Becoming Use Again / BENTA / İstanbul / solo show.
2025 – Survival Kit for Dummies / Martch Art Project / İstanbul / group show curated by Melis Golar.
2025 – Network Nihilism: Soft Infrastructures / Pasaj - Barın Han / İstanbul / group show curated by Evagoria Dapola.
2025 – Thank You for Your Time Kasa Gallery / İstanbul / 2 Person Exhibition.
2024 – Mamut Art Project / İstanbul / https://mamutartproject.com/ece-yalçın.
2024 – Material Relocated : MA Thesis Exhibition / FASS Art Gallery, Sabancı University, Istanbul / Solo Graduation Show.
2023 – Capriola Art Week / edition IV / Lecce, Italy.
2023 – Borderless Artbook Days / Arter, Istanbul.
2023 – Occupation / Meşgale / Barın Han, Istanbul / 2 Person Exhibition.
2022 – Broken Octave / Kırık Oktav / 5533, Istanbul / 3 People Exhibition.
2022 – Open Studio Week / MA studio space, Sabancı University, Istanbul / Two Person Open Studio.
2021 - 22 – Cure / Online space for developing projects in contemporary art practices. / https://www.cure.ist offline / documented.
Publications
Manifold - Kadraj / published 16 September 2023https://manifold.press/kadraj-ece-yalcin-bekleme-odasi
Waiting Room / self published 20 editions / April 2023
Manifold - Kadraj / published 16 September 2023https://manifold.press/kadraj-ece-yalcin-bekleme-odasi
Waiting Room / self published 20 editions / April 2023
Awards
2021 - 2023 – Sabancı University Masters Scholarship
Work Experience
Artist assistant for Dilek Winchester
18th Istanbul Biennial
Teaching Assistant for Selim Birsel, Meltem Işık, Wieslaw Zaremba
18th Istanbul Biennial
Teaching Assistant for Selim Birsel, Meltem Işık, Wieslaw Zaremba
September 2021-June 2023 / Sabancı University, Istanbul
Artist assistant for Dilek Winchester - Attending the Void
August - September 2019 / Depo, Istanbul
Photography and Rights DepartmentFall 2015 (4 months) / Morgan Library & Museum, New York
list of works,
“Ece Yalçın’s solo exhibition Use Becoming No Use Becoming Use Again opens on Friday, March 27 at Benta. The exhibition unfolds from the interior of a personal car, continuing the artist’s engagement with everyday objects as tools of creative practice. Central to the exhibition, Routine (2026) is an oil painting depicting a compact landscape seen from the car’s trunk through the ski hatch at its center — a negative space formed by the items carried to the studio. The painting connects the car’s practical function with everyday objects that circulate through the workspace. In a straightforward and practical approach, materials that could be needed at any point in the creative process are brought together through the framework of the car. Neither fully in use nor completely inactive, these objects reflect the rhythm of everyday studio practice. In this way, attention shifts from the final outcome to the process that leads to it and the conditions that make it possible. * Title adapted from a line in Frank O’Hara, “3 Airs,” in Lunch Poems (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1964), with the word air replaced by use.”
7. Survival Kit for Dummies / 15.09.2025 - 19.10.2025 / Martch Art Project / İstanbul (group show)
“Pathfinder” brings together the form and colors of a bike rack and navigation tools such as a compass, drawing on their practical and functional uses. This two-stage guide proposes a parking spot for personal states such as hurried decisions, the urge to take off, or rapidly reached conclusions. Its colors and indicators create a guide that shifts as one tries to decipher it. When the forms referencing bike racks and parts of a compass rose come together, they also form a guide for thought, tracing a new path within the gallery. The guide is made up of the necessary parts to chart ones own way; although these parts do not come together to provide a solution, they resemble an interlocking metal puzzle—something to recall, alter, or retrace while finding one’s way.
6. Thank You For Your Time / 21.11.2024 - 10.01.2025 / Kasa Gallery / İstanbul
list of works,
“Ece Yalçın, activates the waiting area inside the bank. Undefined time periods in daily life, the stress of uncertainty, and actions that need to be done rapidly without much thought are included in Yalçın's line of work. Yalçın embodies some moments that are difficult to measure, situations that are hard to define while expressing them with "waiting" objects in spaces that require inertia. She replicates the details of the cash desk on the ground floor of the building, and the adornments around it, and places them in the bank's former safe, which now serves as the Kasa Gallery. Thus, by moving the public semi-public structures within the building, she displaces the semantics of the space.”
5. Material Relocated / 22.01.2024 - 25.02.2024 / FASS Gallery / İstanbul // solo M.A. graduation exhibition accompanied by thesis publication.
list of works,
4. 11th Mamut Art Project / 22.05.2024 - 26.05.2024 / Bomontiada / İstanbul (group show)
1. Approaching the medium of painting from outside a descriptive or representation-oriented attitude, the artist establishes a connection between her works and the exhibition space by using methods such as repetition and copying. In the Floor Plan series, where the painting transcends its boundaries and turns into an installation, the paintings, the easels that carry them, and the exhibition space are positioned as a continuation of each other.
2. In the Copy of series, the artist equates these objects with the canvas by referencing the drywall sheets used to divide the exhibition space.
*as mentioned in exhibition press release.
3. Broken Octave / 26.11.2022 - 31.12.2022 / 5533 / İstanbul
In ‘Broken Octave’ Yalçın explores industrial materials and their organic connections in light of errors made by machine production through textile, architectural materiality and a computer glytch.
list of works,
2. Capriola : art week in Italy / 15.09.2023 - 18.09.2023 / Lecce / Italy (art fair)
1. Occupation / 26.12.2022 - 31.01.2023 / Barın Han / İstanbul
In ‘Occupation’ at Barın Han, Ece Yalçın explores what defines her shared studio space at M.A. studies and what sharing a space with another person can contain conceptually. Additionally she is interested in the double meaning of occupation that recalls both occupying a space and having an occupation to make a living. In this two people exhibition, Yalçın reinterprets the mediums such as ducted airconditioning, standardized items, studios windows as well as the industrial landscape and its polluted colors.
Use Becoming No Use Becoming Use Again / 27.03.2026 - 25.04.2026 / BENTA / İstanbul
https://artistryofgood.com/ece-yalcin-fayda-faydasiz-tekrar-faydali-sergi/
https://daily-lazy.com/2026/05/ece-yalcin-at-benta-istanbul.html
https://kubaparis.com/submission/582421
Manifold Press / Kadraj
Melis Bektaş
0-1.gallery
Arttv
https://www.arttv.com.tr/yazi/sanat-dunyasnda-2024un-enlerini-sorduk-derya-yucel
Survival Kit for Dummies / 15.09.2025 - 19.10.2025 / Martch Art Gallery / İstanbul / group exhibition curated by Melis Golar
https://www.unlimitedrag.com/post/kaos-ve-direnc
Thank You For Your Time / 21.11.2024 - 10.01.2025 / Kasa Gallery / İstanbul / 2 people exhibition
Melis Bektaş
Mamut Art Project / 22.05.2024 - 26.05.2024 / Bomontiada / İstanbul / open call
https://mamutartproject.com/ece-yalçın
https://www.24saatgazetesi.com/farkli-bakislar-bir-arada-mamut-art-project-11-edisyonu-sanatcilari-eserlerini-anlatti
Material Relocated / 22.01.2024 - 25.02.2024 / FASS Gallery / İstanbul / solo M.A. Thesis Exhibition
Poster and design : Ece Yalçın
Exhibition views : Mert Acar
Capriola : art week in Lecce / 15.09.2023 - 18.09.2023 / Lecce / Italy
Occupation 26.12.2022 - 31.01.2023 / Barın Han / İstanbul / 2 people exhibition
https://bi-ozet.com/2022/12/30/barin-handa-yeni-sergi-mesgale/
[Oggusto]
The exhibition "Meşgale", consisting of the works of Ayşegül Yapar and Ece Yalçın, will be open to visitors between December 22, 2022 and January 21, 2023. The “Meşgale” exhibition is based on the dynamics and observations of the artists in the process in which they share the same studio. A dialogue transcribed from audio recordings on sharing a studio space accompanies the exhibition text.[Oggusto]
Broken Octave / 26.11.2022 - 31.12.2022 / 5533 / İstanbul / 3 people exhibition
Broken Octave, featuring the works of Ayşegül Yapar, Ece Yalçın, and Sofia Abraham, opens at 5533 on Saturday, November 26th. The artists examine the conditions of production in which human labor is at the center, using mechanical and digital methods such as patterning, reproduction, printing, and recording. The dissonant sounds contained in a broken octave are visible in the exhibition both as margins of error and traces of the individual.
Some of the works in Broken Octave are Ayşegül Yapar’s Cloth no.1, where she uses rusted metal pieces as a printing medium on fabric to focus on domestic labor; Ece Yalçın’s Ultraviolet, which depicts a fictional flower created by opening a three-dimensional model in the wrong software program; and Sofia Abraham’s Autómata, a video work where she records the denim factory established in Mexico by her family members who immigrated from Lebanon as a field research to understand the family’s past and present.
Cure : online space for developing projects in contemporary art practices / 08.2021 - 2022 / online / project founder and artist