ADEM GENÇ

Artist’s Statement:

“… I think I want to consider the question of the ‘modernity’ in art or the practice of avant-garde modernization in a theory that also includes, to some extent, aesthetic and ‘Anti-Art’ pragmatism. In this context, In my painting I rely on my own intuition and believe that art and art criticism is a sophisticated process for the emancipation of the mind. Therefore, I personally agree with the content analysis and evaluations of my paintings in terms of the expression of this sufi sensibility or the expression of this sentiment, together with the forms of perception that govern the basic codes and hierarchy of universal culture ”

Adem Genç, 2020.

Turkish painter Adem Genç, was born in Rize Ardeşen in 1944.  In 1965, he graduated from The Art and Craft Department of Ankara-Gazi Institute of Education and during his education here,  he has attended  Refik Epikman, Adnan Turani and Turan Erol’s figüre drawing and painting  courses. Having been successful in hiss examination ( held According to the Law No. 1416), he was sent to England to study further. Between 1969 and 1971, he attended Figure Drawing and Engraving workshops at Bournemouth and Pool College of Art. He studied English at Angleo Continental School. Then he was admitted to Martin’s School of Art / Advanced Painting programme, featuring studio critics and conferences of famous artists and  invited faculty members  such as Frederick Gore, John Edwards, Henry Mundy, John Jeremy Kenrick Moon, Antony Carol Eduardo Paolazzi and Hubert Andrew Freeth.  He completed his postgraduate education in 1974.

When he returned to Turkey (September 1974), he was appointed to Painting and Craft Department of Samsun Institute of Education. Following that, in 1978, became Teaching Assistant to the Faculty of Art and Architecture at Ege University where he completed his terminal degree in Fine Art (MFA)  and PhD in Art Theory. During the establishment of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Dokuz Eylul University, he served as the Chair and Vice Dean of the Fine Art Faculty and the Graduate Programme Supervisor He also conducted Western Art Courses at Ege University for a couple of years.  In 1991-92 academic terms he continued his research at California State University / Chico as a Fulbright Post PhD Scholar. And became Professor of Art at Dokuz Eylül University in 1992. He is currently working at Gayrettepe Social Sciences and Fine Arts Campus in Altınbaş University and working in personal studio at Maslak AOS (Auto Industrial Site) .

Genç’s interest in painting started in the primary and middle school. He produced reproduction of western painters like Rubens, Constable, Matisse, Cezanne and Van Gogh during his studies in Ankara-Gazi Institute of Education. Until 1969 he was particularly impressed by German expressionists. After 1960, he took part in various art activities with his own unique language search and art approaches  within the traditions Post Painterly Abtraction and Support Surface painting mores and coventions. 

The artist has opened many solo exhibitions in Turkey and abroad and participated in invited and group events. Adem Genç’s works were included in many collection of domestic and abroad. These were mainly,  Deutschbank Collection, Doha Arab Museum of Modern Art purchased and entered into official and private collections in the UK, USA, Australia, Switzerland, Slovenia, Romania, South Korea and PRC, Russian Federation and they were exhibited in many countries.

Adem Genç has been awarded with 14 prizes in several competitive exhibitions he participated in between 1980 and 1996 including the 1984 First Prize of İnönü Foundation Painting Competition in1984. The artist was also given the Ankara Art Institution Award 2000 in “Sedat Simavi Plastic Arts / Painting Award in 2009.

According to Genç, there is a reality in the base of every idea that becomes imagery. The artist began imagery solutions at the beginning of 1989 with a somewhat poetic expression using together the textural values that reminds of volumetric formations on geometrical abstract and cosmic surfaces. Later on, he dissected those geometric shapes and turned them into an amorphous structure like in Amorphous Indicators (1988) just like opposing color smudges. In 1990 he rendered oval, cosmic and again amorphous imagery that floats in space sometimes on a monochromatic plane surface and sometimes with a figure-surface relation he created via brush strokes. Since year 2000 he has been working on projects such as, Why The Things Are The Way They Are in a philosophical manner, Res Ipsa Loquitur as a law term and Evil Eye Talisman in an enigmatic manner.

He is an author of published PhD dissertation on Dada Movement  (Dada/ An İnvestigation of Method on the Analysis of Dadaist Art Movements in Terms of Causation), a joint book titled Visual Perception / Creative Process in Art and wrote numerous art and cultural criticism in numerous periodicals.  A comprehensive bibliographic book about the art of Adem Genc, ​​written by the poet and critic Ahmet Oktay, Adem Genc / The New Abtract Approaches During Post Dada Pop Period was published in 2004.   Another  comprehensive review written by Yalçın Sadak  which comprises aspects of criticism titled ‘Legitimacy’, ‘Context’, ‘What the Painter Says’ ‘What The Painting Says” and an analysis of Adrian Martinez under the headline of  ‘Tubular Shells, Discarded Objects and Formal Stability’ were published as Arete Art Gallery / Contemporary İstanbul Exhibition Book in 2011.