İhsan Oturmak’s practice is concerned with the evolving culture and traditions that the artist experienced growing up in a radically changing Turkish society. Deeply rooted in the artist’s experience being raised in the rural, Kurdish-speaking province of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey, Oturmak’s representational paintings depict scenes with strong political and military themes. Influenced by his struggle to study art in this otherwise agricultural community before his eventual move to Istanbul, Oturmak explores the nuances of human behaviour and group psychology that remain universally unchanged behind political conflict. He portrays fall-outs and friendships, power struggles, and the awkward process of growing up and learning about oneself—all moments which are intensified further when they unfold through sociopolitical turmoil.

İhsan Oturmak describes Illegal Excavation as ‘a reference to the fact that some events carried out covertly by the system are actually visible’. The artist is conscious that the seriousness of the situation that he depicts—the excavation of an unknown site, guarded by police officers—is mitigated by looking at it from a plastic, painterly and ultimately distanced perspective. As a result, the viewer is presented with a documentary image, and a record of this event that is uncensored by the system upon which it reflects.

Oturmak was born in Diyarbakir, Turkey, in 1987 and received his bachelor’s degree in teaching arts and crafts from Marmara University in 2012. Oturmak was subsequently the recipient of Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts’ fellowship to participate in the artist residency program at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, in 2013. His works have since been exhibited at international institutions and art events including the Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris; Taipei World Trade Center, Taiwan and the Royal Academy, London.